GRANT COUNTY, Ark — It took firefighters and agencies 15 hours to fight a fire that spread across Grant County on Sunday.
Residents like Logann Ashlock were urged to evacuate and stay away from the area.
She was at work when her mom sent her a message warning her of the fire.
"I was calling everybody I knew. It was just, kind of shocking, cause we didn't know it was going to make it this far," Ashlock said. "We didn't know how bad it was because we weren't in the area and then we heard about the evacuations so we couldn't come out and check."
Ashlock and her fiancé are in the process of moving from a home that crews wanted to evacuate. Their dogs were still home along with important documents for her children. Her fiancé's grandmother also currently lives in the home.
More than a dozen families had to be evacuated.
The Grant County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) said the call came in around the middle of the day Sunday.
Most of the fire was contained around 1:00 a.m. Monday and residents got the clear that it was safe to return around 2:15 a.m.
"This morning we did a drive by of the home and saw that most of where we lived was clear, we were very relieved. It was mostly smoke and a lot of burned trees," said Ashlock.
She said seeing the extent of the damage for others was shocking.
She remembered calling her neighbor who was also at work, but her children were home when evacuations happened.
Other neighbors with horses had to walk them beside their truck as they slowly drove away from the home to evacuate because they didn't have enough time to load them up with all of the smoke.
"Nobody could see the road," said Ashlock.
The Grant County OEM said they're not sure what started the fire.
In the last update there were over 500 acres burned, but they're expecting more to be accounted for.
Sheridan Fire Department said it's only volunteer firefighters over the weekend and the community has been praising them saying they worked hard to adhere to the motto seen on the sign outside fire department: "We don't stop when we're tired. We stop when we're finished."
"It almost got the church it was very close, but it didn't," said Terri McNamara, who lives across the way from Corinth Missionary Baptist Church. "We were spared. They worked really hard. There was tons of volunteer people out here."
Instead of evacuating, she just drove up the road with her dogs to wait it out worried about her home catching fire.
She's just happy now that she gets to take a nap Monday morning.
Ashlock is thankful that her fiancé's grandmother is okay and that despite the damage, everyone else is too.
"These people could have lost everything and thankfully the county and everybody who came to help was able to save the things that meant most," said Ashlock.