Lincoln county commissioners during their most regular meeting were provided an update by Emergency Management on the destruction and the number of acres burned in the county during the recent wildfire outbreak.
EM Director Charlotte Brown advised the commissioners there were six fires going on at the same time in the county on Friday, March 14.
She told them the Merrick fire burned more than 5,100 acres and over 6,000 acres have burned in the county since the fires broke out.
“It got very overwhelming very fast,” Brown informed the commissioners.
“See all the fires burning at the same time was the most emotional thing I’ve had to do,” she said.
Brown said the fires have claimed 35 residential structures in Lincoln County.
“Our first responders are amazing,” she noted. She pointed to the coordination among all the various agencies involved including law enforcement.
She also mentioned junior firefighters, 16 and 17-year-olds who worked so hard during the fires as well. “I had to send a couple of them home to get some rest,” Brown mentioned, “even though they wanted to keep going.”
Brown pointed out that she was up for 26 hours at one time before getting any rest on that Friday into Saturday.
Answering a question about use of drones and aircraft, Brown replied, “you can’t use them in 75 mile per hour winds.”
Brown also stressed, “The communities have been great in assisting.”
Brown said she herself has been to eight fires since the outbreak but has no idea really of how many fires have occurrred in Lincoln County. Brown added, “I don’t know of anyone who can tell you the total number of fires.”
Commissioners voted to lease road graders from C.L. Boyd for Districts 1 and 2 and they approved an oil and gas lease with Prime NGL.
In other business, commissioners: Adopted a resolution for disposing equipment in District 2.
Adopted a resolution appointing requesting, receiving, inventory officers for the Prague Senior Center.
They heard from citizen Thomas Holmes who addressed them on the status of Wind Turbines. He spoke about a couple of bills in the Legislature dealing with setbacks on property and claimed that in checking county records that in the last year there have been only two leases signed in the county by property owners who reside in the county regarding wind turbines.
He mentioned in the last six months no one residing in the county has signed a lease regarding the turbines although five who own property have signed them but they live outside of the county.