Homeowner recalls escape from N. Mich. forest fire
By JOHN FLESHER (AP), May 21, 2010 [here]
SOUTH BRANCH TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Glenn King was cleaning his basement when sheriff’s deputies pounded on the front door, warning that a wildfire (Meridian Boundary Fire) was bearing down on his frame house in the northern Michigan backwoods.
“They told me to evacuate,” King said. “In three minutes.”
The 62-year-old retiree quickly loaded family portraits, irreplaceable mementos and Paco, his red Labrador, into his Jeep and raced down an unpaved route toward a state highway. It was midafternoon Tuesday, but the smoke became so thick he could barely see.
“You could hear the fire roaring like a train,” King said.
Authorities said 12 homes were destroyed and two damaged by the inferno that broke out Tuesday and blasted across jack pine forests in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula after a local resident lost control of a brush fire.
The fire, about 60 miles east of Traverse City, covered roughly 8,800 acres. The fire was considered 80 percent contained, or secure enough that flames were unlikely to jump the line dug around the perimeter. … [more]