It was a gorgeous spring day on Sunday, and the landowner obtained a permit to burn off the field behind his home on Hogfat Hill in Sebago from the Naples Dispatch Center. Everything was progressing well – until the wind picked up and fanned the fire out of the landowner’s control. He called 911 to report the fire out of control and heading for the woods, and Naples Dispatch toned out Sebago Fire Department at 2:40 p.m.
Sebago Fire Captain Carl Dolloff was the first on the scene while Sebago firefighters responded with engines and tankers. “We have about 2 acres on fire, and it is spreading fast into the woods with this wind,” Dolloff reported on the radio. “Put a call out to Baldwin, Hiram and Bridgton to send their forestry units. We’re going to need all the manpower we can get on this one.”
Sebago Fire Department Captain Carl Dolloff was the field operations
command for the woods fire on Sunday afternoon off Hogfat Hill Road.
The first Sebago units were on scene at 2:52 p.m., 12 minutes after the tone went out. Forestry trucks went right to the fire and deployed firefighters and attack hose lines, and a 2 ½” water supply line was run from Engine 2 at the end of Hogfat Hill Road. A water supply point was set up at the foot of Robinson Hill Road nearby, and a “dump tank” was set up at Engine 2, and a water shuttle of tankers kept the dump tank full and water flowing up the hill to the firefighters.
“The fire has now spread all the way to the top of the hill,” Dolloff continued as he monitored the progress of the fire. “Better notify the Maine Forest Service that we’re probably going to need their helicopter if this gets much bigger.”
The Maine Forest Service has a helicopter on call that can respond with a water dump bucket to serious fires. At this point, it was anyone’s call whether the fire could be stopped by ground crews in time before it became much bigger. A lot depended on the wind, and much more on the efforts of the firefighters fighting it.
Fifty-seven firefighters from seven area departments battled a fast-moving woods
fire in Sebago Sunday afternoon. The fire burned more than 6 acres of field and woods.
In an hour after the first units had arrived on the scene, the fire was knocked down and its headlong spread had been stopped. The Forest Service helicopter circled the fire area and confirmed that there were no extensions to the fire that ground crews had missed. The aerial water bucket was not needed.
A lot of fire remained to be put out, but the front edges had been extinguished. All that remained was the dirty, tiring job of mopping up and making sure that every stump, every log, and every pile of leaves was thoroughly doused with water and cold to the touch. Only then could firefighters be sure that the fire was dead out and would not re-ignite in the future should the wind pick up again.
“We were lucky on this one,” said the Maine Forest Ranger John Leavitt as he inspected the fire line. “These early spring fires burn fast once they get going, especially if there is a stiff wind pushing them, but the ground underneath is still wet and the fires don’t burn deep. Later in the season mop-up becomes much more difficult.”
“You still should have someone back out here tomorrow to make sure that nothing pops up and re-ignites,” he added.
By the time the fire was put out it had burned more than six acres. Fire departments in Hiram, West Baldwin, East Baldwin, North Baldwin, Bridgton and Standish sent 8 pieces of apparatus and 42 firefighters to assist the 5 pieces of apparatus from Sebago and 15 Sebago firefighters working the fire.
This crew of Hiram firefighters was one of several from seven area departments
who battled a fast-moving woods fire in Sebago Sunday afternoon.
A burn permit is required to have an open fire anywhere in Maine. In Sebago permits are issued by the town clerk, Naples Dispatch, or one of the fire wardens in town. Each day a determination is made whether permits will be issued based on fuel moisture, predicted winds and weather. Sunday was a Class 2 day and the danger of a woods fire was moderate. Permits were issued to anyone who wanted to have an open fire to burn brush or fields. Class 1 means that fire danger is low, while Class 3, 4 and 5 are High, Very High, and Extreme fire danger conditions.
When the wind came up Sunday afternoon, making conditions more dangerous, Naples Dispatch called all permit holders for that day and cancelled their permits.
Six acres is a big woods fire for Sebago, and the efforts of several towns working together helped hold it to that. It could have been much worse. Statewide, the amount of forest acreage burned by wildfires has been declining due in large part to local diligence and cooperative woods fire fighting efforts.
According to the Maine Forest Service in their Timber Supply Outlook for Maine 1995-2045: “Prevention and suppression of forest fires has been Maine’s most successful forest protection effort. Records back to 1903 indicate that fire frequently consumed 50,000 acres of forest per year, occasionally exceeded 100,000 acres per year, and burned 213,000 acres during the landmark year of 1947. Fire loss since the 1960’s has been less than 5,000 acres per year and more typically about 1,000 acres…”
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