Quick thinking by two drivers helped avert a potential disaster Saturday in Demorest. Larry Lewallen of Stephens County and Steven Horner of Clayton were driving north on Highway 365 near the Double Bridge Road Connector around 6:30 last night when they saw roadside fires burning. There were six to eight uncontrolled burns spread out over several hundred feet.
Horner witnessed how the fires got started.
“I seen the gentleman throw something out his window…it kind of looked like cigarette butts but it was about five of them, it was one right after another.” Horner says he doesn’t know if it was done intentionally but says the grass immediately caught fire and the suspect fled. “He hit his brakes and took off down that side road and we went down to the median, turned around and come back to help put it out.”
Horner and his family returned to the scene where Lewallen was already stomping out fires. Lewallen, a trained firefighter, coordinated their efforts. “I told him what we needed to do was cut the lower half of it off before it gets down into the hollow and over to the structures over there ’cause if it got to the structures and got to the woods we’d be in sure enough trouble, so, that’s what we done.”
With cars speeding past on the highway the two men and their passengers spent about ten minutes stomping out the fires. The fires were out by the time emergency crews arrived. Two firemen from Habersham County Fire Station 14 responded to the scene. They used a pumper truck to wet down the burned grass.
A smoldering cigarette lay in the road near the scene. It’s unclear at this time as to exactly what started the fires or whether they were intentionally set.
