Texas Town Fumes as Mulch Mountain Burns On

"It seems like -- sorry to say it -- nobody cares," said Amy Salinas, who lives near the pile but can often smell the smoke at the restaurant she owns in San Antonio.

That impression could stem, in part, from the reluctance of the state and Bexar County to get involved in the first place, said Helotes Mayor Jon Allan. He "really had to work" in the first few days of the fire to persuade the state and county to step in and take over firefighting from the landowner.

"No one wanted to be responsible because they knew what the cost was going to be," Allan said.

If the recently implemented plan works, officials estimate the bill for firefighting alone will be more than $3 million.

"We fully intend to recover the costs of this from the property owner," said Clawson, the environmental commission spokesman, referring to the Zumwalt company.

Some residents have also met with lawyers about a possible class-action lawsuit to recover the cost of property damaged by the smoke, several residents said.

Mostly, though, residents are angry that Zumwalt allowed the pile to get so large.

"The whole town was waiting for it to happen," Allan said of the fire.

Helotes residents watched for years as the pile of dead trees and shrubs grew higher and higher as developers rapidly cleared land to build subdivisions in the area.

The San Antonio Express-News reported earlier this year that Helotes firefighters, many of them volunteers, had long worried about the pile, which was filled with flammable cedar and oak trees.

But the company and the county issued assurances that the pile was safe.

"It will not burn," a Zumwalt general manager told the paper in 2005, and the county fire marshal agreed.

Henry Zumwalt, the company's owner, would say only that the fire is "under investigation." He declined to comment further because of a pending lawsuit with the environmental commission over the incident.

But, as the company and residents point out, Zumwalt followed state registration procedures for the site, which was subject to routine inspections by the environmental commission under state law. The fire burned for a month before the commission alleged any violations to the company.

"He took advantage of a system, and we're all paying for it now," Mangum said of Zumwalt.