FORT WORTH, Texas — Crews responded to a large grass fire Wednesday afternoon in northwest Tarrant County.
The fire could be seen burning in a field near West Bonds Ranch Road and North Saginaw Boulevard, which is in an area near Fort Worth, Saginaw and Haslet along U.S. 287.
As of 8:20 p.m. Wednesday, the fire is 100% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The fire burned an estimated 184 acres.
The fire started between 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., according to Tarrant County Fire Marshall Randy Renois. He said a construction company currently doing underground cabling was cutting some rebar up, which caused sparks and the beginning of the fire. Once the wind shifted, it split the fire two ways and caused the fire to spread both northeast and northwest.
"We got people out here as quick as we could," Renois said. "I can't tell you how many fire trucks, brush trucks and personnel we have, but it's more than a handful. We have a bunch."
Renois said about six to seven homes had to be evacuated by the Gilmore Creen area.
Tom Le, a resident of 15 years in the area, told WFAA the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office asked him and his neighbors to evacuate.
"It was spreading quick," Le said. "It was just a big cloud of white smoke and black smoke, you couldn’t see nothing down the road. You never realize it’s that close to you."
"Shortly after we asked them to leave, it was all clear," Renois said. "So it was just a precaution because the fire jumped Peden Road just a little bit. Maybe a third of an acre? They put it out really quick."
Le said he was relieved. He told WFAA it was a wake-up call to the dangers of fire season.
"I need to have a better plan on what to pack," Le said. "You never know what’s gonna happen, especially nowadays, everything’s so dry."
Adam Turner of the Texas A&M Forest Service said his team requested assistance for the fire.
As of Wednesday night, Turner said he did not know of any structures damaged by the fire.
"There have been multiple fire departments coming in and out," Turner said. "Here in Tarrant County, there are lots of fire departments to come around and most of them are here to help."
Turner also said the high heat impacts the firefighters' ability to take care of the fire and requires many first responders to take breaks while working to stop it.
"It makes it more difficult," Turner said. "We can't work for as long without having to take breaks and cool off. All of that heat that's affecting us is also affecting all of this grass and brush that's out there."
Turner said, with it being the beginning of "fire season," many departments are ready to respond quickly.
"This is the normal period of time that we call fire season here in North Texas," Turner said. "Late end of July moving into August and September. We can now comfortably say that we're in fire season here in North Texas. It's something we need to be paying attention to."
"When you have such a large area burning like we do, we can't put it all out," Turner also said. "Even if we have a large body of water nearby, that's a ton of water to try and put out 100 acres of actively burning material. We're going to put out as much material as we can around the edge of it."
