Robert “Dan” Davis was in Alabama having his surgically replaced knee looked at on May 6, 2020, the day an out of control prescribed burn, the now infamous Five Mile Swamp Fire, jumped Interstate 10, raced through his neighborhood and consumed his home.
It also took the prize winning ’65 Mustang he’d worked on for 14 years, other antique cars and tractors, a pole barn and tools accumulated over a 40-year career as a machinist. It even took the family dog.
With his phone pinging repeatedly with emergency evacuation notices, Davis rushed back to Milton, only to find the road to his Ladda Court home blocked. He recalled a deputy telling him, “Ain’t no point in getting down there. It’s gone.”
Today, three-and-a half years later, Davis still tears up as he describes the losses his family sustained, and at times in conversation he looks mad enough to punch someone.
“You know how much I’ve heard from them people?” he asked rhetorically. “Zero.”
Three years later, a settlement
Last week Davis made some headway against those he refers to as “them people” when a lawsuit alleging negligence he filed in June of 2020 against Westervelt Ecological Services and Munroe Forest and Wildlife Management Inc. was settled out of court.