The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 4/24/09 Section: News

A house on Swift Street in Barefoot Resort in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. lies in ruin on Thursday. A coastal wildfire spread early Thursday toward one of the busiest tourist stretches in South Carolina, burning dozens of homes and forcing hundreds to flee in the middle of the night. No injuries were reported. (AP Photo/The Sun News, Randall Hill)

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) - A coastal wildfire spread Thursday near one of the busiest tourist stretches in South Carolina, burning dozens of homes and forcing hundreds to flee in the middle of the night. No injuries were reported and officials said the blaze appeared to be heading several miles north of the most densely populated areas.

"It's still a very intensely burning fire - very extreme fire weather," said Mike Bozzo, a state Forestry Commission commander.

Police banged on doors to awaken residents overnight as strong winds helped the blaze cut a four-mile-wide swath through forests and scrub toward the Barefoot Landing development, a sprawling complex of houses, condominiums and golf courses separated from the main route through Myrtle Beach by the Intracoastal Waterway.

"It was like something out of a movie," said Danielle Prater, 25, of Charlotte, N.C., who woke her aunt and uncle at 1:30 a.m. after seeing flames several feet high racing through a neighbor's back yard. "I ran and got them and we got out of there as fast as we could."

Officials said they hoped the waterway would act as a natural firebreak to protect more populated areas closer to the beach. State officials said as many as 70 homes had been destroyed and others were still threatened, though Bozzo said the blaze appeared to be drifting several miles north of the most densely packed tourist stretch of the region.

The governor declared a state of emergency for the county and five schools closed because of the dense smoke.

Garry Alderman, the county fire chief, described some homes as left with only "skeletal remains."

"I've never seen anything this bad," he said.

North Myrtle Beach mayor Marilyn Hatley said by midmorning the fire at the development had mostly died out, but police still stopped residents from returning to the homes there.

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