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Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds light and variable..
Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds light and variable.
Scorched earth from an April 3, 2021, wildfire in Chassahowitzka off South Riviera Drive goes up to private farmstead's fence line, which was recently repaired after being burned by the flames.
This Florida Forest Service map, marked over by the Chronicle, shows the size of the 105-acre Riviera Wildfire from April 3, 2021, in Chassahowitzka.
Florida Forest Service tractors plowed in this firebreak line April 3, 2021, to keep a wildfire from spreading into a Chassahowitzka neighborhood.
Scorched earth from an April 3, 2021, wildfire in Chassahowitzka off South Riviera Drive goes up to private farmstead's fence line, which was recently repaired after being burned by the flames.
Bill Smith wasn’t happy when he read the news in the Chronicle reporting firefighters’ response to the 105-acre wildfire next door to his farmland homestead in Chassahowitzka.
After Smith saw a comment from the Florida Forest Service in the April 6 newspaper stating firefighters plowed firebreak lines around the April 3 Riviera Wildfire, he called the agency out.
“There is no fire line,” he told a Chronicle reporter on his property off South Riviera Drive, a week after the blaze in southwest Citrus County, “that is a complete fabrication.”
Smith blames forestry for letting around 800 feet of his 21-acre lot’s northern fence burn because they made no attempt to plow firebreaks between it and encroaching flames.
“I just want to prove that ya’ll made a decision,” he said, “it expanded beyond your control, because you made that decision, and then you decided to use my fence as a fire line.”
Keith Mousel, manager of forestry’s Withlacoochee Forestry Center Field Unit, told the Chronicle firefighters dealing with ever-changing winds and timbered terrain had to reprioritize their response to save several homes from flames within 100 feet, leaving Smith’s fence to the fire.
“That’s where we put our efforts,” he said. “In your priorities, it’s going to be life, property and equipment.”
Mousel said Smith’s swath of short pasture grass also acted as a “defensible” barrier between the advancing wildfire and the bulk of Smith’s structures by stunting the spread of the blaze.
Had the fire posed the same threat to Smith’s home as it did to his neighbors, Mousel said, firefighters would’ve acted accordingly.
“They would have kept going, they would have stayed there, but he had the defensible space," Mousel said. "I understand one person’s not happy, but.. ... we saved six houses ... we didn’t lose any lives."
Firebreak lines are either natural or man-made gaps, like rivers and roads, in between flammable materials that stop or slow wildfires.
Brought to wildfire scenes via transport trucks, Florida forestry dozers are equipped with a front-end skid or angle blades to knock down vegetation before its towed plow scrapes out a 8- to 10-foot-wide firebreak deep into the earth.
Plow marks from forestry’s dozers can be seen running north to south, perpendicular up to Smith’s fence line. However, there’s no east-to-west firebreak connecting the two north-south points.
“When they drove the bulldozer through there,” Smith said, gesturing to the north-south fire line, “they could have drove the bulldozer through here and stopped the fire.”
Scorched earth reached up to Smith’s northern fence line, most of which was charred with burst staples no longer holding a wired frame.
Smith said it cost him over $1,000 and more than 60 hours of his own labor to repair the fence.
Florida Forest Service tractors plowed in this firebreak line April 3, 2021, to keep a wildfire from spreading into a Chassahowitzka neighborhood.
He decided not to file a claim of damages with forestry’s risk management office, but implored the agency's supervisors with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to open an internal investigation.
“They never cut a line, and I don’t like it when people lie,” he said.
Mousel said dozers didn’t plow right in front of Smith’s fence when they first arrived because they were trying to head the wildfire off closer to its origin, farther away from Smith's land.
“They did not come here and say, ‘let’s put a fire line here,’" he said pointing along Smith’s fence. “That allows the fire to gain momentum and power. ... If the train gets up to speed, it’s a whole lot harder to stop it.”
Mousel showed a Chronicle reporter where he said a pair of dozers plowed in side-by-side firebreaks around the southern side of a cypress pond, a few hundred feet ahead of Smith’s fence.
This Florida Forest Service map, marked over by the Chronicle, shows the size of the 105-acre Riviera Wildfire from April 3, 2021, in Chassahowitzka.
“They were trying to hold it in this swamp,” he said.
Mousel was able to drive his pickup truck on the firebreaks because, he said, a dozer flattened it to give wheeled vehicles easier access in the future.
Smith said those “firebreaks” were either timber trails or old county roads, claiming their shallow depths were useless in stopping flames from spreading across them on the ground.
“To say an attempt wasn’t made is not accurate,” Mousel rebutted. “Did we go down the length of the fence? No, that’s not a tactic we employ. ... Our tactic is to be as close as safe is to engage the fire.”
Citrus County Fire Rescue (CCFR), according to CCFR and forestry reports, dispatched its closest engine from Homosassa to the blaze at 10:35 a.m.
Several minutes into its response, while traveling near the U.S. 19/98 junction, the fire engine crew spotted a large smoke column rising from its destination, roughly a mile away, prompting a call for backup.
After it got to the scene at 10:47 a.m. within the 138-acre timberland north of Smith’s lot, CCFR’s Homosassa crew went in by foot to find a 6- to 10-acre fire southwest of West Nectar Lane and West Troubadour Court.
Smith said he had warned forestry of the wildfire threat his neighbor’s logging land created.
Mousel, who disputes Smith's warning, said forestry doesn’t mandate people to clear flammable vegetation from their lands, but will assist them if they decide to conduct a controlled burn.
Along with additional CCFR engines and off-road-capable brush trucks being dispatched, forestry also began its response at 10:48 a.m.
Smith argues forestry didn’t have seven dozers respond to the wildfire, contrary to the agency’s statements in the Chronicle.
According to forestry’s report, a total of eight dozers were dispatched between 10:48 a.m. and 2:36 p.m. but one heavy dozer broke down from electrical issues after it arrived.
Forestry’s first four dozers arrived between 10:54 a.m. and 12:57 p.m. before they barreled into the woods from existing and self-made entry points off Nectar Lane and Rivera Drive.
Smith said a few of forestry’s dozers staging near Rivera Drive and Mandelay Loop took their time getting into action, when they could’ve safeguarded his fence.
“They’re wasting time to say, let’s plow along his fence line when the fire’s still back in there, building up in intensity,” Mousel said. “We’re technically sacrificing all this ground.”
Mousel said dozers were also navigating around tree stumps, which can disable dozers and leave their operators caught amongst flames.
Growing to a size of 20 to 30 acres, the wildfire reached the cypress pond by 11:20 a.m. Dozers made their way around the swamp to plow firebreaks in front of it, according to reports.
Even with a double-wide firebreak ahead of the wildfire’s advance, according to Mousel and reports, embers from 20-foot flames “spotted” or flew over the fire lines to reignite on the other side, reaching distances of up to 100 feet.
“It’s throwing embers over there, not even close to your lines,” Mousel said, “and that’s what (firefighters) were having issues with.”
By the time the dozers circled back around, Mousel said, the fire had already reached Smith’s fence.
A CCFR brush truck had been dousing the wildfire’s southern side with water before its pump broke, according to reports, forcing it to swap out for another off-road fire engine.
When the brush truck returned, Mousel said, its service was needed elsewhere.
Winds reaching 11 mph with faster gusts shifted more westward, blowing the wildfire toward six homes off of Riviera Drive and Mandelay Loop.
CCFR engines parked in the roadways and hosed water over treetops to wet homes and woods while forestry tractors continued plowing around the fire.
Ashlyn Smith, Smith’s wife, said a CCFR official told her they were going to let the fire burn what remained between it and the fence, causing the Smiths to relocate their cattle and other livestock from nearby pens.
“They made the decision to let the fire burn out. … They should have contained it, period,” she said. “It’s for their convenience … I just don’t want them do to this again.”
Without firefighters around, the Smiths filled buckets with water to soak their fence and put out spot fires igniting within their pasture.
Firefighters contained the Riviera Wildfire by 6:32 p.m. but the fire wasn’t fully extinguished until April 21. Smoke lingered throughout the neighborhood until a few days of rainfall passed through.
“We are all alive and well, and that’s the most important thing," Ashlyn Smith said, “but I just don’t think they handled it as well as they could have.”
Smith said the issue could have been avoided altogether.
“They decided to use this as a stop,” he said about his fence. “They could have stopped that fire up there … but this was their stop.”
Mousel said forestry’s and CCFR’s response “was a good effort in multi-agency cooperation ... to protect the citizens.”
“If Mr. Smith doesn’t agree with that, I can’t help that,” he said. “He’s got a house to go back to, these folks have a house to get back to, the fire got stopped and nobody got hurt — and that’s the biggest thing.”
Contact Chronicle reporter Buster Thompson at 352-564-2916, bthompson@chronicleonline.com or visit tinyurl.com/yxn2ahso to see more of his stories.
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