Pilot Dan Brown was flying over Fair Haven on Tuesday night when he spotted smokestacks billowing up from the woods around sunset. He alerted firefighters, and since then, they’ve been battling a blaze spread across 11 acres of forested private property.
The fire first started when the property owner was burning brush to clear shooting lanes for hunting, said James Heller, Fair Haven’s Fire Chief. The property owner didn’t realize that he failed to put out the fire, he said.
With pretty dry conditions, the fire grew in a remote part of the woods where people didn’t take notice.
That is, until Brown was flying a private plane overhead before sunset. Struck by the quantity of smoke coming from the woods, he alerted the Fire Department in Castleton and sent over pictures of what he saw.
Two days later, on Thursday afternoon, 35 state firefighters were on site, working alongside crews from Castleton, Rutland City, Poultney and Whitehall with help from the U.S. Forest Service, Heller said.
The groups are trying to maintain a perimeter to contain the blaze. The fire is largely burning underground and is very far from any structures, Heller said.
“They’re attempting to establish a water supply and get a hose line up to their fire line,” Heller said.
Without road access to the area, crews have only been able to get to the fire on 4-wheelers. From above, state hazmat teams used drones and infrared mapping to pinpoint fire hot spots, and follow its movement.
Crews of fire fighters have been cycling in and out to bring in “fresh troops,” Heller said. They thought they had the fire contained within 10 acres until a breeze on Wednesday morning spread flames further. Now, it’s looking like winds will push the fire to the north or northeast, Heller said.
The blaze is what’s called a duff fire, which eats through plant material like leaves and bark that are compacted under the forest floor.
“The only thing that’s gonna ultimately quench it is gonna be a good rain,” Heller said.
It’s important for people to keep an eye on daily fire danger reports from the state because “while it may look green, it can be sneakily dry in the understory,” said Megan Davin, a spokesperson for the state’s Wildland Fire Team, which is fighting the fire.
Fair Haven has been considered high risk for fires throughout most of the summer, Davin said. A strip of the state, including Fair Haven, keeps getting missed by rain while other parts of the state get hit, leading to unusually dry conditions.
On Tuesday evening, when they heard from Brown, the pilot, firefighters in Castleton reached out to those in Fair Haven, who fought the fire for more than four hours on Tuesday night with crews from two other towns.
When the fire spread beyond containment on Wednesday, crews from five different municipalities worked on-site for nine hours. And a number of statewide emergency response groups have chipped in resources, along with the U.S. Forest Service.
With hot temperatures on Thursday, those fighting the fire are trying to stay cool, Heller said. He’s thankful for all of the resources they’ve gotten from around and beyond the state, he said.
Tomorrow, they hope for rain.
“Anything we get is gonna be a blessing,” Heller said.
