As fire ravaged the pine forests just meters from her community, Necole Allen, her two daughters and other members of the small south-western Louisiana community of Graybow decided to take matters into their own hands.
The Tiger Island fire had spread rapidly throughout Saturday, initially a vast plume on the horizon but within hours an inferno at the doorsteps of Graybow Road. It had doubled in size to more than 13,000 hectares (33,000 acres), the largest wildfire in Louisiana’s history.
