Local firefighters head home after battling Southwest Texas blazes

Two Texarkana, Texas, Fire Department firefighters headed home Tuesday, two days after the Southwest Texas wildfires they were battling claimed the life of a Weatherford, Texas, colleague.

TTFD Battalion Chief Alan Sikes and DriverEngineer Eric McCasland left Jeff Davis County to return to Texarkana at about 7 a.m. Tuesday, city Communications Manager Lisa Thompson said. The Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System deployed them to the fires on June 5.

The Weatherford firefighter died Sunday battling the same group of wildfires, named the Scenic Loop Complex. Richard “Andy” Loller Jr., 42, was on the scene because of a TIFMAS deployment.

“While they were conducting firefighting operations, moving up a mountainside, Loller suffered a medical emergency,” Assistant Chief Jonathan Peacock of the Weatherford Fire Department told the Weatherford Democrat.

“He was able to receive medical attention immediately. They flew him off the mountain to a medical center, where they later transferred him to an airplane to fly him to Odessa. Unfortunately, at that time, during transit to Odessa, he passed away,” Peacock said.

Loller was in the fire service for 13 years and is survived by his wife and two children.

The TTFD deployment was the third of the year. In May, Deputy Fire Marshal Capt. Chuck Weerts and Driver-Engineer Nick Smith fought a different wildfire in Jeff Davis County, and Sikes and McCasland traveled to the Texas Panhandle to fight a wildfire about 30 miles from Amarillo.

As of Tuesday morning, the Scenic Loop Complex consisted of seven separate wildfires, four of which were 100 percent contained. The other three were 53, 70 and 98 percent contained, respectively. The fires have burned more than 26,000 acres.