Officials update on Tiger Island Fire efforts

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - At least 250 to 300 people are without water in Beauregard Parish and the numbers could increase if the wildfires continue.

In addition to Merryville, a mandatory evacuation is still in place in Singer due to what’s being called the Tiger Island Fire.

Helicopters airlifted over 600 gallons of water to help contain the fires in Beauregard Parish that swept east of Singer overnight. Beauregard Sheriff Mark Herford explained what happened.

“The winds picked up a little bit and it caused it to jump La. 27 to the east side of the highway and that area is a lot more populated,” Herford said.

Beauregard Sheriff Mark Herford said deputies were sent door to door to ensure residents were evacuated until the fire was under control, as intense relief efforts picked back up first thing this morning.

“We’re expecting the black hawk helicopters doing water drops to continue, as well as the supertankers coming out of Texas with the fire-retardant material to come in and make some drops,” Herford said.

Along with assistance from other evacuation teams across state lines, officials were also battling other factors such as water outages.

Scott Grenum, Director of Beauregard emergency preparedness tell us what led to the water outage.

“There are water lines that are busted due to the fire, we are currently trying to get those repaired as we speak,” he said. “We are holding our own right now but to clarify something here on the water line being busted, Water District Two is actually losing 700 gallons of water a minute due to the water lines being broken.”

Now officials are putting the pieces together the best way they can with various relief efforts, advising residents to help by simply being mindful of water usage.

“For the water usage, I understand that people are having their sprinkler systems going on, we’re asking them to conserve water at this time so we can keep the water pressure up so we can fill the water tanks in the fire departments, so we can combat this fire as we actually speak,” Grenum said.

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