BONNERDALE, Ar (KTHV)--A wildfire that started Friday near Amity in Clark County is under control but still smoldering Saturday evening.
Officials with the Arkansas Forestry Commission say the fire started when a haybailer caught fire on Highway 84 Friday afternoon. It soon spread to the north into Hot Spring County and that's where Terry and Suzanne Black saw it creep closer to their house on Amity Road.
Saturday afternoon they are relieved the flames stayed away...and now they're unpacking what they DID have packed in case they needed to hit the road to safety.
Black says they won't completely let their guard down...yet.
Black says, "Yeah, because it's still smoldering up there. I see smoke and the wind hadn't laid down. It's so miserably hot and you can tell by where you walk--everything is just ready to catch fire!"
The grass under our feet crunches loudly because it's so dry. It's as "telling" as the thermometer on the front porch, which reads 102 degrees.
Black was at work Friday when the fire broke out.
H says, "I got a call about 2:30 from a buddy of mine who lives just south on the Clark side of the county and said 'you know you might wanna get home!' And told me you what's going on, we got a fire and how it got started."
Whe he did get home around 4:30 he says, "It was hard to get home because of the emergency vehicles, and the firetrucks were already here."
Black shows us ashes that have drifted on to his property.
Some residents chose to evacuate to a safe place.
The Blacks packed up their most precious belongings---preparing for the worst.
"Something is smoldering. And it's on this side of the mountain. So that's what concerns me."
But hoping for the best.
"You work hard to try to get it to look like something and you think if in just a little bit you're going to have to leave it and you come home and it not be there anymore? It's heartbreaking."