Boat crews and tourists have been praised for their bravery and speed in responding to a brush fire which broke out at Starfish Point last night.
The blaze erupted at around 6.40pm on Tuesday, just as a boat from Sweet Spot Watersports, owned by Captain Marvin’s, was heading out for a bioluminescence tour.
Guests and staff leapt barefoot from the boat to form a bucket chain in order to extinguish the fire, and stopped it from catching the tinder-dry pine needles and coconut limbs which cover the ground nearby.
The captain, James Segur Jackson, told the Compass, “The first couple of seconds after we jumped off, it wasn’t that bad but, less than 10 seconds afterwards, we saw more flames burst out, it was a bigger fire, it was so hot.
“Everybody was sweating, when you left the water you could feel it – hot hot hot. And everybody had left their shoes on the boat so we were all in bare feet fighting the fire.”
He and his first mate had noticed the flames as they pulled away and initially thought it was only a campfire, but quickly the flames spread.
“Someone said we should put it out and the tourists said ‘No problem, let’s go’,” Jackson explained.
“We anchored and dropped the ladder and everybody started running to the beach, just like that.
“It was so hot, I was pouring buckets of water on my body when I was passing the water out.
“But nobody got hurt. Our guests, my first mate Michael, everybody got out good.
“I think if we’d been there just four minutes later though, half of Starfish Point would have burned down.”
He added, “Man, that was a new experience. Unexpected. Thank God we were there and at that moment passing by and everybody got together and we did what we got to do.
“That’s my first time fighting a fire – I hope it’s the last.”
Captain Marvin’s co-owner Ronnie Anglin said, “We’re just happy to help.
“People just jumped off our boats, grabbing all the buckets and pails they could find.
“By time they could do that, it’d gotten to the size you see in the picture, it was really starting to catch – but it hadn’t even gotten to where the dried leaves and limbs are, that area is all needles and coconut leaves, I’m glad they got to it in time.
“By the time the fire trucks got there, they pretty much had it extinguished. The firemen thanked them for their fast work.”
Anglin, who wrote a note of thanks to his guests on Facebook, added, “The tourists then did the bio tour after that – as luck would have it, it was a fantastic display of bio as well, so they all had a really great evening.”
On Facebook, one visitor explained, “We were on the boat, my husband and all of the men quickly jumped to action, most of them barefoot because they just jumped off the boat to help.
“It was so crazy to watch and I have a lot of respect for the captain, crew, and the volunteers for putting it out! Could’ve been much worse.”
A 911 operator confirmed that reports of a fire were received at 6.40pm and fire engines attended the scene. The blaze was extinguished by around 7.30pm, with no injuries reported.
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