An out-of-control brush fire on Money Road Sunday morning came close to knocking WABG radio off the air.
“It was a very dangerous situation,” said James Poe, the station’s owner and manager.
Bobby Norwood, chief of the Money Volunteer Fire Department, said the call about the fire came in at around 10:36 a.m.
Units from the department’s stations in Money and on Mississippi 7 near the Leflore County Civic Center, responded to the scene.
Poe said he had been trying unsuccessfully to put the fire out on his own before the units arrived on the scene.
“The brush was real, real dry,” he said.
The station has three 300-foot transmission towers, each ringed by a perimeter fence.
The brush around the perimeter of the center tower had caught fire by the time units arrived on the scene.
Norwood said that each perimeter had a huge amount of brush located around it.
“That was a very dangerous situation,” Poe said. “Fortunately, none of the electrical circuitry was damaged.”
He said had the sheds inside the perimeter fence ignited, the station would have been off the air for sometime.
Norwood said that between 50 and 70 percent of the station’s grounds were burned during the fire.
He said that once units arrived on the scene, it took about 10 to 15 minutes to extinguish the blaze.
Poe credited the rapid response of the firefighters for saving the station and keeping it on the air.
“The guys did a fabulous job,” he said.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
