As camping restrictions lift in many San Antonio parks for Easter, firefighters are urging caution with campfires following recent fires in natural areas.
SAN ANTONIO — Local fire officials say that if you’re planning on camping and campfire cooking this Easter holiday, be fire-aware.
Spending the holiday outdoors with family is a well-loved tradition in the San Antonio area and the prohibition against camping in some local public parks will lift Thursday, in advance of Easter weekend.
Because of prolonged dry conditions, fire officials are hoping campers who are cooking outdoors will be extra careful with open flames.
Last Friday morning, firefighters from San Antonio and Olmos Park fought a series of fires in the Olmos Basin area they believe was started by someone who left a campfire unattended.
“It doesn’t take much for those embers to get away from any type of fire that’s set with the surrounding fuel load,” said Olmos Park Fire Chief Michael Goodreau.
Goodreau said anyone who sees smoke in any local natural area should not hesitate to call for help.
“Call it in. Absolutely, call 911. We’ll respond and we’ll come to the location and investigate and if there’s something to be handled, we’ll take care of that,” Goodreau said. “The sooner we have a notification, the better chances we’re going to get to bring it under control.”
It’s important to get a good jump on wildland fires because of the rough terrain and the difficulty crews experience while accessing remote areas.
“It’s very challenging,” Goodreau said, adding it takes much more manual labor to bring things under control because traditional brush trucks and sometimes even smaller ATVs can’t navigate narrow trails.
“They use hand tools, shovels, rakes, and use the natural environment to extinguish the fire. We do utilize some water cans, but it’s very challenging to get traditional hose lines in this deep into the tree line,” Goodreau said.
There are times, he said, when just finding the fire in the dense vegetation is a challenge.
“We were able to get to where we were trying to go for the most part with guidance, but smell, sight, see some smoke, and a lot of times that’s what’s going to lead you to where the actual fire is,” he said, adding there were about five different spot fires that sparked from the initial blaze, which Goodreau said appeared to come from a chimney like structure in a rough hut in the deep woods.
On March 7, the San Antonio Fire Department invested more resources in a massive brush fire near the Salado Creek Hike and Bike Trail, just south of the Red Berry development in east San Antonio.
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In another blaze blamed on a homeless person who started a campfire, neighbors said they were frightened by flames that appeared to reach about fifty feet high.
Cory is the maintenance supervisor at the nearby San Antonio KOA campground. He said he noticed the fire when he heard popping noises south of the property and went to check on what he thought was fireworks.
“We were 40 acres away from the fire, but when I saw the smoke and heard the sound, I immediately realized that there was a fire and so for the safety of our guests, I went to see what was going on, and that’s when we discovered the orange sky and the 50 foot flames,” Cory said.
Cory said from the outset, the San Antonio Fire Department was mounting an aggressive effort.
“They were doing a fantastic job trying to fight the flames, and at the same time, we were having wind gusts of 10 or 15 mph,” he said.
When wind-blown embers crossed from the east bank of the creek to the west, Cory said he and his team jumped in to help.
“We were monitoring behind the fire department and stomping out the small fires that that were popping up from the embers, blowing across the creek,” Cory said, adding it was a frightening time. “Fire can get out of hand in no time!”
When stomping didn’t work, Cory said his team got creative.
“We did everything that we could on our end to try to abate any pop-up fires that were occurring, and we were using creek water and throwing it on the pop-up fires. Just like anybody, we were just trying to keep it from spreading,” Cory said.
Cory said, looking to the future, he hopes to see better upkeep practices by the city.
“It’s a wooded area. It’s beautiful and people love this greenway, but the maintenance side of it is a whole different issue,” Cory said. “With the current condition of the brush it could have easily gotten away from them with the big winds.”
The prohibition against camping in public parks will lift Thursday evening, in advance of Easter weekend, and ends at 11 p.m. Sunday, April 5.
Additional information and safety guidelines related to parks can be found here.
Much more information on statewide fire conditions can be found on the Texas Forest Service wildfire status website.