UPDATE: ATF official rethinking exercise after sparking wildfire
More brilliance from BATF&E....Posted: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 5:00 pm | Updated: 6:58 am, Thu May 12, 2011.
By KEVIN LEWIS Herald Editor | 1 comment
An ATF official is rethinking a training exercise to detonate explosives that sparked a wildfire in northwestern Motley County on Tuesday.
"In hindsight, we should have," Jim Luera, resident agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Lubbock, said in response to whether his agency should have delayed the exercise conducted while much of the region is under a burn ban due to wildfire-ripe conditions.
"There's a burn ban on and red flag warning and they're out there blowing stuff up," said Coy Franks, who leases pasture land in the area.
Franks was eating lunch at his home east of Flomot shortly after noon when he heard an explosion.
"The house shook like a sonic boom," he said. "Everything in the house rattled."
Franks said he and his wife hustled outside to investigate when "another one went off.
"You could see these big mushroom dirt clouds," he said.
The explosions were the result of the ATF's training exercise.