As they sat down to Sunday dinner after church, Keith and Jennifer Martin, of Decatur County, discovered they had some most unwelcome company - and a lot more to watch than football all afternoon.
"We got to the table and my son saw the smoke," Jennifer Martin said. "He and his dad went to investigate. A few moments later, I turned around and saw the flames coming on our land."
What some firefighters described as the largest grass and brush fire in 20 years singed 218 acres in the Bath Springs area, according to Bill Smith, area forester for Decatur County. It accounted for more than a third of the acreage burned by grass and brush fires Sunday in West Tennessee. Authorities are investigating the cause.
"It made for a very interesting day," Smith said. "With the winds going at 35 miles per hour, it was scary."
He said it took 10 pieces of fire equipment and most of Decatur County's volunteer fire department five hours to get the blaze under control.
"We had only three of our Division of Forestry crew members available to help," Smith said. "Many of the others are in Texas and Oklahoma helping fight the wildfires."
Fortunately, the foresters brought their bulldozer, and shortly after the Martins called 911, the foresters dug a fire trench approximately 150 yards from their back door.
"If they didn't respond as quickly as they did, that fire would have been on us before we knew it," said Jennifer Martin, who lives in the middle of a complex of about 150 acres, most of it owned by her husband's uncle, N.L. Montgomery, of Decaturville.
"We had a truck sitting in our back yard all afternoon waiting to protect houses if the fire got too close," Martin said. "Can't say enough about what they did."
Geneva Montgomery said her husband "had planted a stand of pine on our land, and we're not sure just what made it through the fire."
There is also a small family cemetery that was in the path of the fire.
"Believe it or not, the fire went around the gravestones of Keith's mom and dad," Martin said.
While no citations have been issued, authorities are investigating whether or not the blaze started as a result of burning trash.
"Why anyone would do that on a day that windy is beyond me," Geneva Montgomery said.
Said Martin: "Now I can understand a little of what folks go through in California when the brush catches fire and that (Santa Ana) wind starts blowing."
She said that "most of the night I was up and down, worrying what might happen if the wind kicked up again ... in fact I'm looking out the window now, and there are still fires burning out there.
"But it's also trying to rain (the forecast calls for up to an inch of precipitation today) ... and it needs to get here NOW!"
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- Pete Wickham