Fearing the threat of wild fires due to dry and windy conditions, Clark County Judge Ron Daniell placed the county under a "red flag alert" Wednesday.

Daniell issued the alert after consulting with officials of the Arkansas Forestry Service and Jim Burns, Clark County's director of emergency management.

"We didn't want a situation like they've got in Texas," Daniell said. Wildfires have burned more than 20,000 acres in that state and Oklahoma. Records indicate that most of Clark County has received less than an inch of rain this month.

A red flag alert means that people can still burn trash and leaves, but only after obtaining permission from their local fire authorities. Fires must be constantly supervised, because high winds can cause them to spread out of control very quickly. "If a fire gets out of control and causes damage, that person would be responsible," Burns said.

Several rural fire departments were dispatched to grass fires in the county on Wednesday. Firefighters called for assistance from the state Forestry Service for a fire on a farm off Highway 51 near Okolona, Burns said.

John Cook, Clark County's forester, said controlling forest fires is one of his main responsibilities as an employee of the state Forestry Service.

Small planes fly over districts in the state to detect forest fires during the typical fire season, which is August to October in our six-county district. "If they don't see a local fire department responding, they call it in," Cook said.

Most fire departments use only water to put out the fires, and don't have the capacity to carry enough water to extinguish the blaze entirely. "Some of those fires move pretty fast," he said. "It's easy to run out of water in a hurry."

Some departments have what are called "brush trucks" which carry large amounts of water to be used on a grass or woods fire. Even then, the forestry service is sometimes needed to combat a fire.

Once local departments contact them, foresters provide equipment and personnel to fight the fire using heavy equipment to create a fire break, Cook said. A fire break is an area that has been cleared of brush and debris using a bulldozer or other equipment. "We basically eliminate the fuel for the fire." By plowing a clear path around the fire in the woods, the fire will be contained within a certain area. "That's the goal."

High winds sometimes allow the fire to "jump" a fire break and continue burning, Cook said.

Sometimes several fire breaks are used to control the direction in which the fire spreads. "You can almost steer a fire in the direction you want it to go," Cook said.

The forestry service has tanker planes which can be called in to help fight a forest fire, during the typical fire season. During that time, the planes are kept at a nearby airport to provide quick response to forest fires. The planes may also be available during other times as well. "It just depends on where (the planes) are needed," Cook said.

Although several neighboring counties, including Pike, Hempstead and Ouachita, have implemented full burn bans, Clark County has not. A full burn ban was not issued, Burns said, because it would have outlawed the use of fireworks in the county. "With New Year's Eve coming up, the judge didn't want to do that."