GRAYLING — It was a normal ride home from school for two 11-year-old Grayling boys, that is until smoke rolled into their school bus and some of their classmates began to panic.
"There was a lot of smoke. You could smell it. You knew there was fire because you could smell it," said Brennen Barber.
"We drove through a lot of smoke on the freeway," said his friend, Adam Perrin.
Michigan's largest wildfire of the season raged across Crawford County Thursday, where rain-starved jack pine woods were tinder dry and prone to burn quickly in the windy afternoon conditions. The wildfire was spotted from a plane around 3:30 p.m. and consumed 1,100 acres — nearly two square miles — by 9 p.m., when firefighters began to battle the blaze into the night.
Six homes burned in the fire, although no firefighters were reported injured, officials said. Homes and businesses in and around Grayling lost power because of the wildfire and traffic was backed-up and redirected from Interstate 75, Old U.S. 27 and M-72.
As many as 20 homes were evacuated near Grayling after the forest fire ignited near railroad tracks on the east side of town and burned northwest toward Grayling, said Ada Takacs, spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources.
Officials do not know what started the fire, only that as many as seven small fires burned together to create a large area of burning woods.
"There was a red flag warning today and we knew this was going to happen," Takacs said.
The blaze jumped I-75 and continued to burn into the evening hours. It is expected that fire crews will still be mopping up this morning, Takacs said.
The American Red Cross set up an evacuation shelter at Camp Grayling where residents can stay until they are allowed back to their homes.
Fred Perrin, Adam's father, said he noticed a lot of fire-truck activity in the afternoon and easily found the source of the commotion — billowing smoke filling the sky. His home is on Four Mile Road, not far from where the fire started.
"Before I heard fire trucks or anything, we saw a large column of smoke to the northeast of here," Perrin said. "I knew it was a big fire. I took a drive about a mile north and lots of smoke is what I saw."
Fire crews rushed to the scene from surrounding counties and nearly 30 pieces of heavy equipment were used to fight the fire, Takacs said.
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