JEAN LAFITTE, La. — Firefighters are working around the clock to extinguish a smoky marsh fire in Jean Lafitte in lower Jefferson Parish.
Helicopters have been dumping water, scooped up from Bayou Barataria on the flames.
Tanker trucks are also spraying water on the scorched vegetation keeping the fire contained within a system of levees away from people’s homes.
“If we didn’t stop it at this point in time, if it would have happened to cross the levee system, it would have been in a densely populated area of homes that we would have been worrying about,” Lafitte-Barataria-Crown Point Fire Chief Linton Duet said.
The fire started Tuesday morning.
Chief Duet said so far about 100 acres have burned in the Flemings Plantation area.
“The smoke stays close to the ground, and it causes problems on the highway right here. It’s really very dangerous. Almost zero visibility in a certain particular area. If the wind picks up it shifts the smoke to a different area.”
Thursday, two schools in the Lafitte area were closed due to the fire danger.
Michelle Lightell said it the smoke was too thick to drive her daughter to school.
“It was a little scary to see, to drive to drive so we didn’t even take her to school yesterday. Today same thing, we didn’t go. Thank God school was canceled today.”
Lightell can see firefighters battling the marsh fire dangerously close to her home.
“I have the firemen here and they’re here to protect it,” Lightell said. “They’re doing a great job. Being here, being seen, running the hoses. Yesterday they ran the hoses across my driveway. I couldn’t even get in or out of my driveway because they were trying to fill up the canals. They’re doing what they can to contain it.”
The fire is now burning in the root system, under the trees and plants. Chief Duet says that’s what makes it so difficult to put out. The flames can travel underground and pop up in different areas.
“What we have is we’re dealing with debris from Hurricane Ida that killed the marsh area with that and the green vegetation that’s coming out, it’s burning underneath all of that stuff,” Duet said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The chief found shotgun shells on the levee and says hunters may have started the blaze.
Fire companies from across the West Bank were also working to put out the flames.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.