by Janet Kim
MT. JULIET, Tenn. – Wilson County emergency officials battled three brush fires overnight. The third one was a rekindle that destroyed an abandoned barn.
Jay Partington watched as flames inched closer to his home in the Wright Farms Subdivision in Mt. Juliet early Tuesday morning.
"And so when we ran out into the field, it looked like it was coming right up into the tree line here," he said.
The Wilson County Sheriff's department evacuated Partington's family and began alerting neighbors as firefighters battled a quick-spreading brush fire.
"They told us it was burning from the field and 75 yards from the house and that we needed to get out," said Partington.
"The call came in at about 4:30 this morning, and when the first units arrived on the scene, they had a field of about 15 or 20 acres that was on fire," said John Jewell, the director of Wilson County Emergency Management.
At one point, flames were six or seven feet high in the air. The smoke could be seen from Interstate 40.
While it's unclear what ignited the flames, emergency officials said the dry conditions helped fuel them.
"Because of the incredibly dry conditions, we just can't afford to leave any embers. If we can see them at all, sometimes you miss them but we try to get as much out as possible," Jewell added.
Though a barn and a shed couldn't escape the fire's path, Partington is grateful his home was spared.
"I could hear them yelling across the field, when they got the fire turned back into itself, that was kind of a wave of relief as they came back and said looks like we're going to be ok," Partington said.
No one was injured.
Wilson County Emergency Management said there have been more than 36 reported brush fires in the county since June 1.
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