July 6, 1998
For more than a month, it hasn't rained much more than
a spit in Central Florida. Starting around Memorial Day brush fires
started to burn, glazing the skies with smoke. A few hundred acres here
and there would burn and the heat got worse. Then on Thursday, the fires
got bigger. One small fire joined with another to make a bigger fire.
Then another bigger fire started in another county. Scores of new fires
broke out and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their
homes.
| Because of the crisis, the Fourth of July weekend came and went
without celebration. Personal fireworks were banned and public fireworks
displays were canceled. The Pepsi 400 NASCAR race at the Daytona
International Speedway was postponed until October because fires
were within a few miles of the track. Swimming at the beach became
impossible because most of the fires are near the Atlantic coast.
Swimming in lakes and rivers was impossible because the high temperatures
had made the water so hot that harmful bacteria was breeding in
the shallows. |
A
crew from California works on hitting hot spots in the fires.
|
I had planned to take a long weekend with my family but
instead was pulled into work as the newsroom went into full "disaster
mode" to cover the fires. Nearly everyone worked extra hours. The newspaper
added pages and all three of our local television stations shifted to
24-hour coverage for more than three days
I has able to stay home Friday, spending most of the day
in the air conditioning with the kids. On Saturday, I drew the difficult
assignment of shooting Fourth of July art. Over the years I have worked
on the Fourth many times but none of the events I usually cover were
happening. I went to a state park and shot two boys looking into the
springs and not swimming because of the bacteria.
Sunday I had my first assignment to cover the fires. Other
photographers on staff had covered the initial assignments, mostly in
our regional bureaus where the fires began. I was glad to finally get
in the field to cover this story that had become so important to our
community.
I left in the morning for Brevard County which is east
of Orlando and home to Cocoa Beach and the Kennedy Space Center. Fires
had hit the northern part of the county near the towns of Mims and Scottsmore
but had been brought under control. It wasn't as bad as further north
where all of Flagler County was evacuated for several days, but several
neighborhoods in Brevard had been hit hard by the fires.
Sheriff's deputies at roadblocks directed me towards the
most serious burn areas. Driving into Mims, I saw a pile of ash that
had once been a double-wide mobile home. Two people were there, walking
slowly around the property.
Woody and Barbara Mouirehead had been in Georgia when
the fires broke out. They had a hard time getting back to Mims because
145 miles of Interstate 95 had been closed for three days. They had
been at their home for only a few minutes before I arrived.
|
Barbara talked the most, pointing out the charred
motorcycle frame that had been her son's dirt bike. She shook
her head often and wiped the sweat and tears from her face. Woody
found a Craftsman socket wrench set he could return at Sears under
a life-time guarantee. Barbara found two porcelain doll heads
she had made that survived the fire that was so hot the steel
foundation of the trailer was twisted.
I talked with them as we walked around the property
and I made pictures here and there. Some neighbors stopped to
talk with them and I headed down the road.
|
Barbara
Mouirehead and her husband Woody returned to find their home has
been reduced to ashes in the fire.
|
|
Firefighter
Dallas Turner of Clayton, Oklahoma rests during a lunchbreak in
Mims, Florida.
|
I found a group of firefighters on their lunch break, sitting
at the edge of a charred out pine stand. The scene was a panorama
of charcoal with a pinch of green on palmetto bushes that hadn't
burned through. I shot pictures of the group and then pulled out
a 200 mm telephoto lens to focus on one firefighters lying on the
ground, getting a brief moment of rest. Dallas Turner of Clayton,
Oklahoma looked weary, but not beaten. His youthful face reminded
me of the boys I'd seen in Civil War photos. |
After their break, I photographed a team of firefighters
from California that had arrived the day before as they worked on a
hot spot behind Ray Presley's house. They dug into the steamy soil (in
Florida, even the dirt burns), and sprayed foam into the ashes.
| The reporter from the Sentinel showed up and I took him back to
the Mouirehead's land, hoping that they might still be there. It
had been several hours by then, but Woody and Barbara had returned
to wait for officials from FEMA. After I introduced them to Joe,
I shot a few more pictures then returned to the car to get a digital
video camera. I taped about five minutes of video for use on the
Sentinel's web site and on a Central Florida News 13, 24 hour local
news channel our newspaper is a part-owner. |
QuickTime
video
|
Back at the paper, the photos of the Mouireheads and of
Dallas Turner were the best. An Associated Press freelancer was at the
office and he transmitted those photos to the news service and I left
the negatives with my editors for possible use in the Sentinel.
|
You leave the office never knowing what might happen
in the editing. Although I knew they were looking at my photos
for good display, I never count on good display, just in case.
In today's edition Dallas Turner, shown lying quietly on his side,
was on the front page. The photo ran the entire width of the page
- the largest photo I have ever had on the front page in 15 years
at the Sentinel. Our newspaper doesn't normally run photos that
large but a combination of the big story and thoughts of a redesign
on the horizon combined for a gigantic photo.
The headline over the photo read "HOW MUCH
MORE?" In the past 42 days, more than 458,000 acres have
been burned by 2,000 separate fires. An estimated 153 homes have
been lost and the cost, in damage and firefighting , is at $386
million. This afternoon, the skies became overcast again but this
time it wasn't smoke. A storm broke out in Orlando and as I finish
writing this three hours later, it is still raining. More than
two inches have fallen so far and we've had more rain this afternoon
than we have in the entire month. Maybe the weather pattern is
changing.
QuickTime
video
|
The
July front page of The Orlando Sentinel.
|
Tom Burton
