ROLAND, Ark. (KTHV) - The wildfire that swept through Roland in recent days has been put out, but it keeps flaring up daily.
Lori Sullens continues to fight it every day with a garden hose.
It began on Tuesday, July 24th, at 10 a.m.
"There's a 15-foot flame over our heads," Sullens explained.
Passersby stopped in front of her home. The woods behind the residence were engulfed in flames.
"They were beating on the door saying get the dogs, get your mom, get out of here...each one of the men carried a dog, and we got my mom under the arms, and put her in the car and drove off," Sullens said.
With her family safe, Sullens stayed behind to help a firefighter, using a garden hose to keep the flames back.
Suddenly the path of that fire changed directions.
"I don't know why but it turned back into itself, that's the only reason we still have a house," said Sullens.
Some of those flames even charred her front yard but left her house in tact.
The only damage is the siding on her garage, which buckled from the intense heat of the flames.
But the battle continues to be fought.
Due to dry conditions and wind, a contained fire doesn't mean it's over.
This nightmare, for Sullens, continues.
"When I see it flame up after it gets dark, I bring water buckets and the hose and put out the fire. Because why get everybody up out of bed for it," Sullens said.
It's something she has been doing every day since the fire began last Tuesday, her birthday.
Sullens' friends tease her about that.
"I got all the fire and no cake," Sullens said.
But with the fear of it flaring up at any time and coming back toward her home:
"I don't sleep at night. I sleep for an hour and I get up and look out the window. And I drive around the neighborhood," Sullens said.
She checks on the land on the other side of the charred 40 acres, where 200 bales of hay had been sitting until last week.
"And we had the hay moved out Tuesday. The neighbors put it on a trailer and moved it because if that hay catches on fire, there won't be anyway to stop this," Sullens said.
The fire burned about 40 acres last week, and at least eight homes were threatened in the area of Roland Cutoff and Wild Oak Road.