Families fight to protect their homes in Estill County wildfire

ESTILL COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT) - There is still a state of emergency in Estill County tonight.

As crews work to contain one of the two wildfires that began burning this week. People have been fighting to protect their homes.

Just when people finally thought their homes were safe from encroaching flames, many of the flames came back down the mountains a few hours later. They said the flames were rising again, now at the height of their shoulders.

After getting his daughters somewhere safe, Travis Cassidy and his wife Stephanie went back to their home, late Tuesday night, as they watched the fire start to burn through Ravenna.

As the orange flames burned toward Cassidy’s home, he sent his drone up to see how long they had, in case he and his wife needed to get out.

“I was up all night and just watched it come down the mountain,” Cassidy said. “I just wanted to see where it was at. See what the status was, where it was moving. We couldn’t see anything, just the fire. We didn’t know how far it was up there.”

As he watched over his property, crews worked through the night to keep the fire at bay. Eventually, extinguishing the flames at the tree line mere feet from Cassidy’s home.

“Two years ago we were dealing with the flood. Now we’re dealing with this. I mean, you just don’t take stuff for granted anymore,” Cassidy said.

If it doesn’t warm up, there is a good possibility we could see another hazy sky Thursday morning. We are told it could be similar to what we saw Wednesday morning.

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