By BRIAN MCNEILL
Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: April 22, 2008

A Virginia Department of Forestry official who suffered extensive burns while fighting a massive brush fire in Buckingham County is expected to survive.

Steve Morris, a 43-year-old forest technician from Cumberland County, was fighting the 600-acre blaze Saturday with a bulldozer when the wind shifted and blew the flames in his direction.

“It was quick. He tried to get out of the dozer as quickly as he could, but it happened faster than you could bat an eye,” said Greg Winston, the department’s regional forester. “A wall of fire engulfed him.”

Morris suffered third-degree burns to his hands and second-degree burns to his neck, thighs and chest. He is being treated in the intensive-care unit at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Two other firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation.

For Morris, “it’s probably going to be a long, hard road ahead,” Winston said.

Morris has been with the forestry department for more than 20 years. Winston called him an “all-around excellent” forest technician and firefighter.

“He knew what he was doing,” Winston said. “It’s extremely dangerous work. There’s no way of getting around that.”

The brush fire was in a young pine forest near state Routes 622 and 676. All five of Buckingham’s fire companies helped fight the blaze, which was completely extinguished Sunday morning. The fire threatened 36 houses in the area.

The fire’s cause remains unknown, but forestry officials are investigating.

The last time a Virginia Department of Forestry employee was injured in a forest fire was last September in Pittsylvania County. In that case, a pine forest burned during the drought, and a forestry official suffered second-degree burns to his hands.