Trial by fire

Port Aransas residents feel heat of Central Texas wildfires



New islanders Ron and Pat Miller pose for a photo in front of their home off State Hwy. 361 on Sunday, Sept. 11. Their Port Aransas cottage was their second home until their first home, near Bastrop, perished in a wildfire. Now their second home has become their first home, and they’re living full-time in Port Aransas.

New islanders Ron and Pat Miller pose for a photo in front of their home off State Hwy. 361 on Sunday, Sept. 11. Their Port Aransas cottage was their second home until their first home, near Bastrop, perished in a wildfire. Now their second home has become their first home, and they’re living full-time in Port Aransas.

Ron Miller stayed put almost until the last minute, hoping that the gigantic wildfi re wouldn’t reach his house.

Before, after Ron and Pat Miller’s Bastrop area home stands in January 2007, above. Below, the house lies in ruins after a wildfire swept through the region earlier this month.

Before, after Ron and Pat Miller’s Bastrop area home stands in January 2007, above. Below, the house lies in ruins after a wildfire swept through the region earlier this month.

The monster blaze eventually would incinerate more than 1,500 homes in the Bastrop area. On Monday, Sept. 5, the fire was burning just to the north and east of Ron’s neighborhood in K.C. Estates, a subdivision about five miles east of Bastrop.

While Ron’s wife, Pat, evacuated safely to an area motel, Ron stayed at their log cabin- style house on Pine Tree Loop, keeping an eye on the advancing flames and “just kind of not wanting to give up,” he said.

 

 

Ron drove through the streets of his neighborhood, looking to see if anyone else was around. His dog, a blonde mixed breed named Nellie, rode with him in his Ford pickup truck.

“I’m pretty sure I was the last one out,” said Ron, who also owns a second home in Port Aransas. “I didn’t see anyone. No firefighters, no neighbors, no one. It was just me and that dog.”

The fire was so big that firefighting resources were stretched thin. While no firefi ghters were on the ground in his neighborhood, efforts were being made from the air.

“The helicopters were flying over my house, at treetop level, dropping water,” Ron said. “But the fire was so big, it didn’t do a thing.”

It was early afternoon, and the flames were maybe two blocks away. Ron’s electricity was out. His water wasn’t run- ning, either.

“About 1:30, I was looking out my kitchen window, and I could see the smoke boiling up over our treetops,” said Ron, a retired case manager with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. “It looked like storm clouds, when a norther blows down here. I knew then, it was creeping up.”

He also knew he had to get out. He loaded up Nellie, drove to the motel where Pat was, and they headed south, to Mustang Island. They’re now living full-time in their second home (now their first and only home) – off State Hwy. 361 in Port Aransas.

They haven’t been back to see their property since the fire was closing in on Sept. 5, but they know their house is gone. They’ve seen pictures that were snapped by others and e-mailed to them. The place burned to the ground.

FEELING THE HEAT

Even though Port Aransas lies far from the wildfires that have been ripping through other parts of the state, this town’s residents, property owners and frequent visitors have found themselves touched in a variety of ways by the calamity.

Ross Partlow, whose family has a second home in Port Aransas, lives most of the time in the Fair Oaks Ranch area of San Antonio, where a big fire burned Tuesday and Wednesday, with flames spreading to within a mile of his home. His house wasn’t damaged, but his children’s elementary school closed for a day because of smoke from the fire.

Port Aransan Eddie Ham has an aunt and uncle, Peggy Chandler and Darrell White, who lost their Bastrop home. “It was kind of like their dream home,” Ham said. “They built it themselves.” The couple also was unable to avoid losing three pet dogs in the blaze, because the folks were out of town at the time the fire moved in.

Ann McClelland lives in the Fair Oaks Ranch area of San Antonio and has a second home in Port Aransas. She, her husband and two friends, Carol and Roger Boerner, were in a movie theater in Corpus Christi on Thursday, Sept. 8, when they got word that an earlier wildfire had rekindled and was burning through Fair Oaks Ranch.

“Carol and I both started getting all these text messages about the fire,” Ann said. “It was pretty frightening.”

The women left the theater, made some calls and learned that their houses were safe. (The Boerners also are Fair Oaks Ranch residents who have a second home in Port Aransas.)

One of the houses that burned to the ground in Bastrop once was owned by Leicel Dismukes’ mother, Flo Brister, who died about 10 years ago. The family sold the house after Flo died, but it still hurts Leicel, a Port Aransas resident, to see the property ravaged by fire.

The fire destroyed a special prize rose bush breed developed by Flo’s late husband, Andy Brister.

“He named it for my mother,” Leicel said. “He called it the Flora Mae.”

The Flora Mae rose bushes that were consumed by the fire were the only ones of that kind in existence, Leicel said.

Mark Baize is owner and vice president of Resaca Resources, an independent oil and gas exploration company based in Port Aransas and Spicewood, which is near Austin.

Baize said the Texas wildfires haven’t damaged any of his company’s many storage tanks and other equipment, but the blazes have prompted the company to take extra precautions to avoid fire-related problems.

The company is making the clearings around its drilling and storage facilities locations 100 feet wider, as a fire break. That’s happening at 22 installations in Liberty, Montgomery and Tyler counties, and further safety measures are being considered at other facilities the company has around the state, Baize said.

“Everyone is reassessing our safety measures, our protocols, our evacuation requirements,” Baize said. The fires “are causing us all to take pause.”

Larry Sauls of Port Aransas has two longtime friends, Ken and Linda Schutt, who lost their home in Spicewood, near Austin.

Less than a month before the fire broke out, the Schutts were in Port Aransas, helping Sauls move into his new house off 11th Street. Now Sauls is returning the favor. He gave them a file cabinet, some money and a note.

“I wrote them a note saying that their help, their expertise and their friendship is just priceless,” Sauls said.

Also helping out the Schutts have been a couple of other longtime friends, Aransas Pass residents Ron and Cyndi Christenson. Ron is retired, and Cyndi works as a substitute teacher at H.G. Olsen Elementary School in Port Aransas.

The Christensons gathered a truck load of stuff – clothing, kitchen supplies, furniture and more – and drove it all up to Austin. The Schutts will keep the items in the duplex where they are staying temporarily until they can re-establish a home on the property that burned.

Putting it in perspective

The Millers, who have been visiting Mustang Island for about 15 years, say they’re probably going to live at their Port Aransas home for at least the next year. It will probably take that long to get things sorted out and decide what to do, said Pat, a retired elementary school teacher.

The Bastrop area house that the couple lost was a custombuilt three-bedroom house. The couple had lived there for 29 years, since the structure was brand-new.

The Millers had insurance, but they don’t know yet if they’ll rebuild on their Bastrop area property. If they do, it won’t be anytime soon, they say.

“It looks like a war zone,” Pat said. “The ground is burned. The trees are burned. They look like matchsticks, and it’s very dangerous, because all the dead trees are going to be falling.”

The Millers got out of Bastrop with only a few keepsakes.

“Your heart aches for the memories you left behind,” Pat said. “So many of the material things can be replaced, but there are lots of memories and things that are there, and keepsakes – pictures of grandchildren and just things they made for you or drew for you, things my mother gave me that belonged to my grandmother, just special things like that, that can’t be replaced. Those are the things you grieve for.”

But the Millers said no one should view them as victims.

“ We’re fine,” Ron said. “We’ve got a nice place to live. We lost stuff we can’t replace, but that’s life. There are people much worse off than we are.”

Questions? Comments? Contact Dan Parker at (361) 749- 5131 or dan@portasouthjetty.com.


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