Rain slowed but won’t stop Louisiana’s largest wildfire as it creeps toward towns

Louisiana’s largest wildfire doubled in size over the weekend but slowed to a crawl after a short bout of rain on Sunday night.

Predicted hot and dry conditions for much of the week mean the Tiger Island Fire in Beauregard Parish will likely flare up again, fire officials said Monday. The fire, which is burning about five miles from the Texas line, was about 50% contained on Sunday night.

“It doesn’t look like this fire is going to go away anytime soon,” said Susan Heisey, a public information officer for the Southern Area Incident Management Team, an inter-agency organization that took command of the firefighting operation on Sunday.

The fire, which threatens the towns of Merryville and Singer, grew from 16,000 acres late last week to nearly 33,300 acres on Monday morning. Another wildfire in Beauregard near Longville has burned about 19,200 acres, according to the Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office. Smoke from both fires has produced smoke that has traveled over New Orleans and beyond. Hundreds of other fires have burned across Louisiana, which has experienced a long-running drought and record-breaking heat in recent months. 

Evacuation orders have been called for Merryville and areas near the small community of Junction. A voluntary evacuation order remains in place for areas north of Longville.

At least 20 structures, including homes and barns, have been damaged by the Tiger Island Fire, according to the sheriff’s office. No injuries or deaths have been linked to it. 

Firefighters planned to spend Monday attempting to box-in the blaze by digging fire lines and using roadways as additional containment borders.

The rain and slight dip in temperatures over the weekend offered a bit of a breather for emergency responders who have had their endurance tested over the past week.

“We have an opportunity to catch two things today: We can catch a break and catch up,” Incident Commander Steve Parrish told firefighters during a Monday morning briefing.

The incident management team’s presence is an indication that the fire now has regional significance. The team, which includes wildfire response experts from several federal and state agencies, is deployed to some of the country’s worst wildfires.

The number of personnel fighting the Tiger Island Fire has grown to 180. Vehicles include at least eight helicopters, 10 tractor plows, and about 30 bulldozers. Firefighters from Texas, Florida and Oklahoma have recently arrived to assist with the response.

This year’s wildfire season has been the most active in at least a decade, according to data from the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry. Wildfires have burned an average of 8,217 acres per year over the past decade, but wildfires during the first three weeks of August scorched twice that amount. Wildfires in August are on track to burn more than five times the annual average by the month’s end.

There’s some uncertainty about whether the Tiger Island Fire is the largest wildfire in Louisiana history. While some state and local officials have called Tiger Island the state’s biggest-ever fire, historic records hint at larger blazes.

One of Louisiana’s most devastating wildfire seasons was in 1924, when up to 17% of the state – about 5 million acres of forest, swamp and marsh – burned from wildfires, according to Times-Picayune archives. In 1942, nearly 1.2 million acres burned in Louisiana, the state forester told reporters in 1951. Some of the fires during 1924, 1942 and other years may have been larger than the Tiger Island Fire.