January 2006

The Arkansas FireWise Team chooses a home each month that illustrates FireWise principles. Maude and Buster Bittle of Greers Ferry are owners of the January 2006 FireWise Home of the Month. Buster, 87, a carpenter and rock mason, built the wood-frame house in 1945. IN 1957, he added the distinctive rock work. The couple have been married for 67 years.

The entire 10-acre homestead, which the Bittles purchased in 1945 for $300, features many Firewise elements such as the mowed prairie grass on the east and south side of the property, and the composition shingles on the house. The road in front of the house is a fire break between the property and a heavy stand of pine trees. Maude, 82, is especially proud of her specimen trees- a catalpa next to the rock smokehouse from which they harvest fishing worms, a pecan, an ash, a sweet gum, a sassafras and three cherry trees.