Latest update on the Tiger Island Fire

The Tiger Island Fire was first reported on Tuesday August 22.

The fire is located east of Merryville, south of Hwy 190, SW of DeRidder and North of Singer. The fire is burning in pine plantations and access to portions of the fire area is difficult and fuel loads in the pine plantations are high. Heavy residual fuels as a result of Hurricane Laura in 2020 exist and its contributing to extreme fire behavior.

As of Monday, August 28, 33,294 acres have burned and 50% of the fire has been contained.

A total of 180 personnel; 8 Helicopters, 10 Type-6 Engines, 10 Type-2 Tractor Plow Units, and 15 Dozers are being used.

Additional support is being provided by the National Guard, Parish authorities, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the Louisiana State Fire Marshal Team, Beauregard Sherriff’s office, and the Office of Emergency Preparedness. The National Guard is supporting with Black Hawk helicopters and 16 dozers and the fire response is using Large Air Tankers, Scoopers, and Air Attacks from Texas.

With many additional personnel and equipment arriving yesterday, the focus for operations will be to continue to establish dozer lines as direct as possible to the fire edge, mop up areas of heat, and continue work on identifying structures and ensuring structure protection is in place.

Along the northern edge of the fire, crews will work to keep the fire south of Stamps Road and Shins Road and west of Schuetz Road. Several spot fires were identified yesterday west of Schuetz Road and dozers lines were quickly established to contain those spots. These areas will continue to be monitored Monday. Fire personnel will continue to work twenty-four hours with day and night shift operations.

Night operations reported light rain over parts of the Tiger Island Fire last night over a three-hour period resulting in minimal fire spread overnight after record high temperatures were reported across the region Sunday.

Although this rain was not considered a “wetting” rain across the fire, these conditions do provide a window of opportunity for the firefighters Monday.

“We have an opportunity to catch two things today. We can catch a break and catch up,” shares Incident Commander Steve Parrish during the morning operations briefing.

The front that brought showers and storms Sunday will push south of the area Monday, reducing the chances of rain. Afternoon highs will drop back into the middle 90s with minimum relative humidity dropping briefly into the 40% range. Overall, conditions will continue to be dry and hot, causing firefighting efforts to continue to be challenging.

Updates on evacuations and available shelters can be found on the Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office Facebook Page at: https://www.facebook.com/beauregardsheriff [facebook.com].