Locals say it started with a bolt of lightning. After a large tree stump was struck on Double Top Mountain, a slow burn ignited on October 24. And it didn’t take long for what came to be called the Quaker Run fire to travel across both sides of the mountain, nestled against the Syria region in Madison County.
That’s when volunteers from the Madison County fire department, as well as a local bear hunting group, swung into action.
One of the first volunteers on site was Lucky Graves, a lifelong Madison resident, who lives in Syria near Graves Mountain Lodge and is a member of the Double Top Bear Hunting Club. During the past several weeks, he’s helped maintain fire lines, transported equipment, directed personnel in the rough terrain, and occasionally distributed food to those working on the mountain.
“It’s like it always is around here,” says Graves. “We stick together as a local community to try to help anybody out. So the bear hunters didn’t have any problem when I called them to come help.”
The rapid response to the Quaker Run fire, which has burned nearly 4,000 acres, is a testament to the citizens who live in this small county of 14,000 residents. Since late October, volunteers—in addition to those from the local fire department and bear hunting club—have come forward to help with everything from establishing fire lines to supplying water and food. But the response has been challenged by Madison’s limited cell phone service and internet, especially at the site of the fire.
“There is no reliable cell phone coverage,” says Brian Gordon, Madison County’s director of emergency communications and deputy emergency coordinator. “Once you get up on the ridges, you may look like you have service and try to make a call 10 seconds later, you’ll lose it.”
Soon after the fire began, Verizon brought in a mobile site so emergency personnel had access to cell service. The mobile site allowed the team to communicate without having to travel to an area with cell service, according to Gordon. He also says the device allowed the Virginia Department of Forestry to generate maps on site to hand out to those working on the fire.
The Virginia DOF issued a news release on October 27, stating there was a 125-acre fire located on private land that was difficult to access due to terrain. A day later, the blaze had more than tripled in size, and the DOF said it was aiming to complete a fire containment line of 650 acres.
The jump in numbers seems alarming, but this was actually a slow-burning fire, according to Cory Swift-Turner, a public information officer with the Virginia DOF. “It has been relatively low intensity,” Swift-Turner says. “And what that means is that the flames are sort of creeping along the ground, just burning up those dead leaves. The flames are not really climbing up into the trees.”
By November 3, the fire had spread to roughly 1,500 acres. At that time, Clay Jackson, director of emergency management and chairman of the Madison County Board of Supervisors, said they were working to control the fire by removing any fuel from the 1,600-acre fire line they’d set up. Jackson says volunteers collaborated with state foresters to create this line amid tough terrain, described by Graves as rocky, mountainous, and very steep.
Volunteers were critical to navigating the area. According to Graves, the biggest challenge is “the terrain and trying to get people to understand where you could go and where you couldn’t go to actually help fight the fire.”
Jackson says the “outpouring of support” from locals in the area, who donated money, food, water, and their time, was incredible. “It’s kind of the Madison County way,” he says. “When things go sideways in Madison, it’s amazing the people that come out of the woodwork and say, ‘What can I do to help?’”
Jerry Carpenter, another lifelong Madison resident who works for the Madison County Parks and Recreation Department, remembers spending a lot of time over the years at Graves Mountain Lodge. He says he knows so many of the people who are working on the mountain to put out the fire. “It’s like one big family, Madison is.”
Fortunately, Graves Mountain Lodge wasn’t damaged by the blaze, which is reassuring for folks who vacation and fish there. Lodge manager Lynn Graves—brother of Lucky—says, “As long as it doesn’t jump the fire lines, [we’re] okay.”
Jackson says there will be a post-disaster meeting to assess the county’s emergency management. Among the items that must be addressed, he says, is cell phone service. “The [issue] that has been so apparent up there is the lack of cell service and any kind of internet capabilities, which was a real hindrance from the start,” he says.
Jackson also mentions the possibility of purchasing a device that will increase cell phone service and internet reliability. “Madison County needs something like that to be able to function in a better way moving forward.”
One thing, however, will certainly remain the same: volunteers. “I’ve been in the fire company since 2000. I’ve been working for the county since 2005. And every emergency that I’ve seen in that timeframe, we have had a large gathering of volunteers and large gathering of donations to assist us,” Gordon says. “I don’t expect that to go away anytime—it’s the type of people we find in Madison County.”
Three days after Governor Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency due to the fire, it rained in Madison County—to the relief of both residents and volunteers. As of November 13, the voluntary evacuation near the fire has been lifted and a statement from the Virginia DOF says the blaze is roughly 40 percent contained.
“[It’s] just like anything,” says Lucky Graves. “When you first go into something like that, you gotta get your communications, everybody get on the same page, and work together and try to take care of the situation.”
