The State of Mississippi is under a Red Flag Notice

Chickasaw County, Miss (WCBI) – The National Weather Service put Mississippi under a Red Flag Notice as of this morning.

Outdoor burning is discouraged due to the extremely dry conditions.

Firefighters, especially in rural areas have been busy putting out blazes that have gotten out of control

“It was just something that turned into a simple gonna burn some leaves out of a ditch turned into a tragedy,” said Scola.

On February 14th homeowner Robert Watkins lost his warehouse due to a small fire that got out of hand.

Watkins’ sister, Nichole Scola says it happened quickly.

“He was across the corner just burning a ditch off yesterday it really wasn’t all that windy and one ember went through a nail hole and he just heard *whoosh* and it just went up in flames paperwork insurance titles all that stuff is gone in like 30 minutes,” said Scola.

Scola says that they called 911 but it took more than just one fire department to put out the fire.

“We had like 5 fire departments here. They were here and had it not have been for them we would have nothing,” said Scola.

Situations like this prompted the National Weather Service to issue a Red Flag Warning for the entire state of Mississippi.

Hoston Fire Chief Johnathan Blankenship says that this was one of over 20 fires in the past week.

“For a week now we have been battling these types of fires and they spread so fast and people think that they’ll start a small fire and think well I can handle this but one gust of wind and it’s over,” said Blankenship.

Blankenship says that there may be several fire departments in the county, but some of those are understaffed, and if there’s more than one call at a time, resources are stretched thin.

“Our manpower is very limited and we have a lot of volunteer fire companies and they’re very limited there. We’re trying to handle the smaller fires with one fire department but easily every fire department in our county could go in different directions at any given afternoon,” said Blankenship.

Blankenship also asks Mississippi residents to hold off on controlled burns until conditions improve.