The Wooden Nutmeg

We have a bona fide summer fire season this year.

It’s been setup by a dry spell that has had the last significant rainfall in large parts of Southern New England be on June 23rd. Around the 4th of July was spectacular warm but dry weather; then following for Monday it turned extremely hot and humid with temps breaking 100º Monday and Tuesday.

Yesterday, July 10th, some areas received heavy rain. My home, however, barely broke the 1/4″ mark:

Major fires struck in Groton, MA (two separate incidents) and Holden, MA. The Holden fire covered approximately 50 acres and was attended to from Monday (5 July) through Friday. The first Groton fire of around 12 acres was active from Monday through Wednesday, then a fire in a separate section of town was fought on Thursday and Friday. After checking the perimeter and determining the active fire on Saturday was burning with no danger of exposing improved property, and with rain imminent within a few hours, it was allowed to burn without firefighting efforts.

Fires this time of year tend not to spread fast (the Connecticut fire danger hasn’t popped above “Moderate” during this spell yet), but go deep following the roots. Run hoses out into the woods, and leave them in place for a few days even for small one or two acre fires so you can return and wet down the area each day. Grub around with tools like Pulaskis and shovels.

Southwestern Connecticut was hit hardest in this state, with some of the fires reported on the ctfire-ems.com forums being:

4 July: Middletown (South District). Initially under control 1537. 1730 it was running again and a large m/a request made. Durham Tanker, Haddam Tanker and Brush Unit’s, Westfield, Portland, Middletown, DEP to scene. Middlefield, Middletown with cover assignments to South District.

5 July: Bethany, m/a Hamden, Woodbridge, Oxford, Prospect, Beacon Falls, Seymour for coverage. Fire located 1-1/2 miles off the road; ATVs could bring FFs about half-way in then rest on foot. Hose laid to fire.

7 July: Mulch pile fire on state property, Farmington. East Farms (2 Engines), Farmington (2 Engines), Oakland Gardens (Engine), Tunxis Hose (Engine), Plainville (Coverage), State DOT for front end loader.

7 July: New Milford, under 1 acre burning along power lines. Waterwitch, Gaylordsville, Northville, Brookfield (last three for tanker & manpower), New Milford Ambulance, Roxbury Rehab Unit

11 July: Voluntown, mulch pile. Voluntown, Griswold (2 ETs), Jewett City (Engine, Ladder), plus tankers from Preston City, Lisbon, Baltic, Moosup

The first Groton fire was accessible only to ATVs, and my sources report a 20′ x 18″ trench was hand dug around the perimeter. The second fire would see the hiring and deployment of three bulldozers on Friday. Bulldozers are very, very rarely used in New England. Both Connecticut and Massachusetts own one, but the single time I know of in the last ten years that each has been used they were used primarily to build an access road to a fire deep in the woods; in Groton the dozers were used to make fire line.

Pictures from the Groton Fires sent to me:
From the 8-9 July Fire:

From the July 5-7th incident…Brookline for a UTV! (With the fire also burning in Holden taking resources from Central Mass, a task force from Metro Boston was pulled in, along with resources from District 14 (Framingham region) and Merrimack Valley)

WBZ has a real nice video on the Holden fire here. (In my archives as Holden_July_2010.mpg in case that link disappears). Holden’s press release tallied up 29 communities that had come to it’s assistance.

Mashpee, MA also had a significant fire covering 5 acres. Cape News Net has a great article here (archived copy), from which these photos were taken. Some great, great examples of Brush breakers in action:

Photo essay from the Wood River Valley area: http://d90.us/wooden_nutmeg/essays/Arcadia_2010/

A really great write up of managing fire in New England Pine Barrens, archive here.

In addition to those “natural community” issues, few active firefighters have seen truly severe fire conditions in New England.

Although rainfall alone doesn’t dictate fire danger (frequency of rain is likely much more important in New England in keeping fire danger to “high” or below), the following graphs show a very sharp difference between pre-1970 and post-1970 climate. You can get more data for different regions of the New England states here.

I strongly suspect that it is not coincidence that we haven’t had a serious forest fire problem in southern New England since the early 1960s. Before, roughly, 1970 we used to experience a deep drought about every ten years. Nothing since 1970 has matched those 10 year droughts.

Also I’m still researching the frequency rain events. Rain tends to “reset” the fire danger.

Let’s assume a cycle like this; while conjecture it’s not an unreasonable cycle based on my observations over the years:
Day 1: Rain (Low danger)
Day 2: Moderate
Day 3: High
Day 4: High
Day 5: High
Day 6: High
Day 7: Very High
Day 8: Very High
Day 9: Very High
Day 10: Rain (Low)

Now add in one overnight rain:
Day 1: Rain (Low danger)
Day 2: Moderate
Day 3: High
Day 4: High
Day 5: Rain overnight (moderate)
Day 6: Moderate
Day 7: High
Day 8: High
Day 9: High
Day 10: Rain (Low)

Most people wouldn’t notice a major impact from an extra shower or two in April, but it could be having a very large impact on fire danger.

May, 1930 Fire Outbreak in the Northeast

The articles that follow are from the New London Day documenting a break out of wildfires in Connecticut and Rhode Island (as well as the rest of the northeast).

There were warning signs at the very end of April, with a large fire in Colchester, East Hampton, and Marlborough consuming 3,000 acres. Even by the standards of the day that was a fairly large fire:

A few days later Waterford had a woods fire.

This one only covered 100 acres, but something ominous was occurring:

Foreman Thomas B. Woodworth of the Quaker Hill fire department [said] some of the “new” fires broke out 1,000′ ahead of the firemen. He said that it was possible the blazes may have been started from blazing bits of dried chestnut wood.

Ok, so we’re also in the middle of the Chestnut Blight that put a very large load of dead fuels in the forests. But that aside, since the trees were dead the year before and the year after and we didn’t have these intense fires every year…they were seeing “spotting” 1,000′ ahead of the fire. In Connecticut. (This is the first documentation I’ve seen that gives a distance with what we can expect for spotting in our area in an extreme fire year).

Then all hell broke loose.

From The New London Day on May 5, 1930:

Six homes, thirty other buildings, and 3,000 acres in Westerly and Charlestown, RI that burned essentially to the sea:

250 homes in Nashua, NH are destroyed by a brush fire that turned into an urban conflagaration:

A fire in Glastonbury, later put at around 2,500 acres, would burn five miles in length from it’s origin, and at one point reach four miles wide. Being fought by 1,000 men. “Small” fires burning 60 to 150 acres destroyed buildings in Newtown & Windsor. Another 1,000 acres in Bristol. And a 2,500 more acres in New Britain / Southington / Plainville. So a 1,000 men…that’s what, a request for 40 strike teams today? And oh by the way, we have two more fires of this size within 20 miles of here, too…oh I’d love to be a fly on the wall when that request arrives at the DEMHS.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, 1,500 acres was burning by Marlborough and 2,000 acres in Russel, two of the “20 bad and 75 minor” fires that day:

Niantic was busy trying to protect their cottages from a brush fire:

I only got the last half of this article on New London County…multiple fires in Waterford with hundreds fighting them, Gungywamp in Groton, 2,500 acres in Preston, Ledyard, and North Stonington:

On the sixth comes an article that would have folks throw a fit today:

Finally, at the risk of pulling a Ron Popeil and going, “But wait, there’s more!”

Connecticut’s first state forester, Austin Hawes, would later place the total acreage in Connecticut that burned in this first week of May, 1930 at around 25,000 acres. And they were actually kind of pleased by that — the last bad year of 1922 had seen 80,000 acres burn.

Washington County, RI would see some 30,000 acres burn. An article up above already mentioned the 3,000 acre fire in Westerly. North of Westerly there were two more fires that burned along the Connecticut and Rhode Island borders, in Rhode Island alone one consumed 10,000 acres and the other 12,000.

The worse of these ignited around Glasgo, CT (Griswold by the Voluntown town line) and burned all the way to Nooseneck Hill Road — today’s R.I. Route 3, or spitting distance from where I-95 crosses the state today. The proximity of the two big fires, along with the spotting that was occurring, it’s quite likely they were a single fire and/or merged along the way.

This same fire is described several times in various histories of the Yawgood Scout Reservation, such as this one:

The plateau was the place where Chief Williams and “Gus” Anthony had a dangerous encounter with the great forest fire, as described in the second edition of The Story of the Yawgoog Trails:

Chief Williams and Gus Anthony stood on this plateau on Sunday afternoon, May 3, 1930 amidst the blinding smoke and falling embers and heard the roar of the great forest fire that came sweeping down from the Beach Pond area six miles [10 kilometers] away. “The fire roared like an express train as the giant white pines exploded into flames like torches.” Chief and Gus ran for their lives back down the trail toward Rathom Lodge (Williams and Tracy).

(There may some exaggeration going on — Beach Pond is 3 miles due north of Yawgoog, maybe 4 to the far northwest corner of the pond. Or the origin was considerably behind Beach Pond, either north or west of it and Beach Pond was used simply as a convenient land mark)

From the August, 14 2005 Providence Journal:

Byline: John Kostrzewa

Aug. 14–HOPKINTON — AFTER 75 YEARS, THE GREAT FIRE’S LESSONS LIVE ON: The Great Fire of 1930 burned a terrible chapter into the history of Camp Yawgoog.

It was a tragedy and a natural disaster.

The fire destroyed all but 50 acres of the Boy Scout camp set deep in the woods of South County. The devastation drove the birds and ground animals from the blackened and desolate landscape.

The sounds of life disappeared.

While the story of the Great Fire is a dark memory from Scouting’s past, it also is a story about hope, turning disaster into triumph and rallying for a common cause.

Mostly, it’s about Scout spirit that today still burns brightly at Yawgoog.

Here’s what happened 75 years ago this summer.

The winter and spring of 1930 were among the driest on record. The lack of snowfall and rain reduced streams to trickles. The water level in Yawgoog Pond dropped several feet.

Back then, Scouting in Rhode Island was still in its infancy. Most people had never heard of Yawgoog.

But two early Scout leaders, J. Harold “Chief” Williams and H. Cushman “Gus” Anthony, envisioned the wooded area as a future summer camp for boys and began to develop the property the new organization acquired.

They cleared some land for tents and erected a mess hall and headquarters.

During the first weekend in May 1930, Williams and Anthony were leading a training session for Scout leaders at Yawgoog when the fire warden came into camp. He warned that a fire had broken out well to the west, in Connecticut, and was spreading. He told them to be on the lookout.

Williams and Anthony smelled the smoke the next morning, as soon as they poked their heads out of their tents. They sent a team of campers and local volunteers with buckets, brooms and rakes to set up firebreaks at the edge of camp.

They walked west through the campground until they saw three huge columns of smoke on the horizon.

The fire, whipped by strong winds, approached with a terrifying roar. The thick smoke overtook them. The heat seared the buttons on their shirts.

They were forced to retreat and decided the only parts of camp they might save were the main buildings.

Anthony climbed to the roof of the lodge at the camp called Three Point and sprayed the roof and walls with water from a garden hose. Other adult leaders pushed their cars into the pond to escape the embers.

The fire swept along Yawgoog Pond and through the campground. Flames surrounded them, but Williams, Anthony and the others saved the lodge.

The next morning, the fire broke out on the far side of Yawgoog Pond, across from the camp. The fire crept along the shore and then leaped to Phillips Island. The Scout leaders watched the giant pines and white birches on the island ignite like torches.

Still, it was not over. The blaze continued the third day along Wincheck Pond at the opposite end of the camp.

When the fire finally died out, Williams and Anthony hiked through what was left of Yawgoog. Tent platforms, several cabins, even the docks had been destroyed. Charred tree trunks and rubble, still-smoldering, were visible for acres.

It was Anthony who first noticed the silence that had settled over the camp. The wildlife had fled, seeking sanctuary from the fire.

Standing in the black ashes, a foot deep in places, Williams and Anthony looked out at what was left of their vision.

“It was heartbreaking,” Williams said.

But he also saw the opportunity. He saw the chance to pull together a fledgling organization of troops scattered throughout the state to work on a common goal.

The fire had been front-page news in the daily papers. With Rhode Islanders focused on the damage, Williams put out the call and began to build a network of Scouting supporters in business, industry, government and the media. They all agreed to pitch in.

“We began at once to think of reforestation,” Williams said.

Two weeks after the fire, on an early Sunday morning, 500 Scouts and leaders from 79 troops from across Rhode Island arrived at the gates to Yawgoog. Each troop was assigned a section of camp and given an initial batch of 50 seedlings purchased from a nursery in Maine.

In a single, long day, the Scouts and volunteers planted 25,000, five-year-old white pine seedlings over 250 acres.

When the Scouts finished, a light rain blessed their work.

“Mother Nature has begun to heal the blackened wounds,” Williams said.

Fourteen months later, in July 1931, judges, politicians, business executives, editors, benefactors, Scouts and adult volunteers gathered at Camp Yawgoog.

They were there to dedicate the Bucklin Memorial, the huge, stone and wood-beamed building that serves as camp headquarters. But the talk was about the trees. The softwood pines planted by the Scouts grew among the hardwoods that had sprung back to life.

Federal forestry agents said it was the single largest reforestation effort in the history of Rhode Island — a model for others to follow.

And walking through camp, they all heard the sounds of life again.

Since the Great Fire, Yawgoog has become a familiar name to Rhode Islanders and one of the premier camps in the country.

Scouting has grown, too. But there also have been more tragedies, especially this summer.

During the national jamboree last month in Virginia that attracted 40,000 Scouts, four leaders were electrocuted setting up camp. Later, 300 Scouts there suffered heat exhaustion. In a separate incident elsewhere, a Scout from Utah was struck by lightning.

And then, Yawgoog itself was closed for 12 days after a contagious stomach virus sickened more than 100 Scouts.

Last Sunday, after a fresh scrubbing, Yawgoog reopened. About 800 Scouts spent a great week earning merit badges, making friends, learning to live as a community and having fun.

On the same trail hiked by William and Anthony to inspect the devastation from the Great Fire, the Scouts may have seen the marker for the reforestation, or heard the story told around the campfire.

It’s a pretty good lesson for Scouts and for that matter, for all of us.

John Kostrzewa, business editor, spent last week as a volunteer at Camp Yawgoog.

To see more of the The Providence Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.projo.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Providence Journal, R.I.

My company went mutual aid for a structure fire “through the roof” reported by a UPS driver on a long dead end road near the Brooklyn / Hampton town line. House was on the ground on arrival, so the woods fire was more interesting. You can find a full write up here.

West winds at 10mph, gusts to 20mph. Much better then the NW@20, Gusts to 40mph of the day before!

The fire grew to 3 to 5 acres in size (I didn’t GPS the perimeter), mainly because of initial concentration on the structure before engines and firefighters were put onto the woods fire. It was burning in primarily hardwood leaf litter, with a few small groves of hemlocks. Some young hemlocks did torch, and when the wind gusted even the leaf litter could produce 2′ flames.

What I like in the photo above is it shows a small spot fire. In these conditions if you wanted to successful with an indirect attack you probably needed a 3′ wide fire line to stop wind driven leaves from “rolling” across it. Leaf blowers backed up by hand tools would’ve done a heck of a job.

Slowly rotting away. The metal looks in good shape, not sure I’d trust the wood anymore!

Rhode Island stopped routinely staffing their fire towers around 1990, although some are occasionally staffed by the DEM on the worse fire danger days. Esocheag seems to get no love. This tower was erected in 1938, is 80′ high, and sits at 560′ above sea level. Photos from 2004 and 1990 can be found here. (In those pictures you’ll see a “candy cane” radio tower, that is no longer there. There is a newer tower which is un-painted and I believe shorter. It may have been erected a little further south then the radio tower in the older pictures, too.)

This tower would’ve looked down at a 30,000 acre fire a few miles to it’s north in 1942, and nine years later it would witness an 8,000 acre fire burning just to it’s south.

I do have mixed feelings on fire towers. From a romantic standpoint, I think they’re cool. From an economic standpoint, you would have to have some sharp pencils to show me that they are cost effective. There are some volunteer staffing programs around the nation (see this post), and it makes me wonder if you compromised with the State maintaining the towers and retired (but in good health) volunteers manning them the few critical weeks each year if it would be a reasonable compromise.

When Connecticut discontinued their fire towers in the 1980s they removed them, so at least we don’t have pathetic sights like watching Esocheag rot away. Massachusetts still staffs a number of their towers, with more in a “reserve” status that sees them manned occasionally. When listening to a fire in Dudley last week when the Charlton tower was closed due to lack of staff, the Patrolman from Douglas State Forest went up the Oxford tower to get a third, more accurate line since the towers in Princeton and Mendon were having difficulty pinpointing it and determining if it was a single and not multiple fires.

Burned 8,000 acres in Exeter and West Greenwich Rhode Island. I drove this area today, man…so many good photos to take of woods ready to explode once again I have to plan a day for the photos I want to take! May need to wait till next spring before “green up” for maximum effect.

Another large fire was burning in the Massachusetts / Connecticut / Rhode Island border region as well.

Those who read this blog know a central event I like researching is the complex of fires lit on April 30, 1942 by Edward LaCasse which burned some 50 square miles in Eastern, Connecticut (Sterling primarily), and Rhode Island (primarily Coventry and West Greenwich).

I just found this nifty piece from the 28 April 1942 New London Day — in addition to numerous smaller brush fires in the region that were proving difficult to extinguish due to re-kindles (see this post), there were at least two very large forest fires burning in Eastern Connecticut in the days before LaCasse’s arson spree. One in Groton consumed 1,000 acres, while another in Voluntown, ignited by accident when gasoline spilled on a hot engine, consumed 2,000 acres as well as a house and several outbuildings:

As other posts in the search talk about the 50 square mile fire that was centered on Sterling, CT and Coventry, RI…let’s take a look from the New London Day as to conditions in the region south of that fire that week.

The fires in that area began on Thursday, April 30th, 1942.

One common theme in these newsclippings is re-kindles of fires.

These clippings were found through this query: http://www.google.com/archivesearch?q=brush+fire+source:%22The+Day%22 (You can further define it by date ranges).

April 28th:

May 1st, mentioning Westerly firefighters who the morning after their own 350 acre fire left to help in Coventry:

May 2nd:

May 4th. That a “state pumper” came out of Lebanon is interesting. There aren’t currently any large DEP facilities in Lebanon. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen another reference to a fairly high up (or top) State Fire Warden living in Lebanon though.

May 4th. This is a different fire from the large Westerly fire mentioned above! If I have the timeline correct, the first article refers to a 350 acre fire between White Rock Road & Boon Bridge Road on Thursday, April 30th. This is north of downtown Westerly, by the Pawcatuck River. This article is for 300 acres off Shore Road, which today is Old Route 1 east of Watch Hill (I assume this is the road referred to in the article), on Saturday, May 1st. Over one square mile in two days…plus they had sent help to the large fire to the north!

From the New London Day, 19 April 1980:

Fort Shantok is no longer a state park — it was transferred to the Mohegans in 1996, following their federal recognition in 1994, and is adjacent to today’s Mohegan Sun casino. The Mohegans have a long history of friendly relations with colonial and later state authorities; in 1645 Uncas was beseiged at Fort Shantok by a force of Narragansetts until a relief force led by Thomas Leffingwell arrived.

South End Fire Department, in Old Lyme, also no longer exists. They were shutdown by their town, who took possession of the town owned station and apparatus. The department was left with the rescue truck they held title to, which was later sold to Eastford, and as part of that deal my company (Mortlake) purchased the Hurst tool and its gas-powered pump as a backup unit.

As reported in this post on CTFire-Ems.com:

Plymouth 4/12/10
The DEP has been fighting a forest fire in a section of the Mattatuck State Forest all day today. It is located north of Greystone Rd. and east of Todd Hollow Rd. The fire was actually discovered late Sunday night, but because of darkness, access issues, and rough terrain, it was decided to wait until daylight before sending crews in. Access to the area was by foot only. This will most likely be the largest fire yet in CT this season. It looks to be around 100 acers so far. There was intense fire activity in the afternoon with wind gusts carrying the fire over several fire lines and some 10′-15′ flame heights.

And a later update:

DEP had a line around the fire and was out of the woods by nightfall last night, so there wasn’t a need to activate the Wildfire Crew. Though there was talk on Monday afternoon of bringing in a helicopter and fire crew if we couldn’t get it. It dosent show it on the google map, but Todd Hollow Rd runs south all the way down to the Train Tracks near Greystone Rd. So that was our line to the west, and the tracks were eastern line. A hand line was cut over the top from Greystone to Todd Hollow through heavy mountain laurel at some spots 5″-6″ in diameter. The DEP had 16 firefighters on scene Monday Using 3 saws and 4 leaf blowers and hand tools. There were about 10people on scene today checking the line (it held) and burning out a small section near Todd Hollow Rd. So far it looks to be around 140 acers. Will post some pics later

You can see the extensive, low green of the Mountain Laurel thicket described above in the aerial photo from Google Maps. I kind of like this winter time images better then summer ones for looking at wildfire locations.

Judging from the flat ground, and the aerial photo, I’d assume the first picture was taken in the flats by Todd Hollow Road. That is a decent size grove of fairly big white pines. Those are generally found in hollows — first because they’re protected against high winds, and second because of the moisture available by the streams.

The forecast for Sunday & Monday called for winds out of the north and northwest, which would’ve had them blowing down that hollow, while the fire naturally would want to burn uphill. Along with a difficult to access location, very understandable the size this grew too!

This is a different section of the forest, actually quite a bit of distance as well as a river and Route 8, from my hike back in 2008 that is in this photo essay.

From the Waterbury Republican American on 4/14:

One of the larger brush fires in Terryville Fire Chief Mark Sekorski’s memory is out after burning 137 acres in Mattatuck State Forest since Sunday.

The fire, in a remote area just feet off the “blue trail” hiking trail, “is on the top scale as far as brush fires go,” Sekorski said. About 25 Terryville firefighters and 23 state park rangers responded to the fire Sunday after a 7:58 p.m. call, but found it too dark to do anything in the steep, rough terrain. The closest homes, off Greystone Road, were in no real danger, Sekorski said. The wind was on their side, blowing away from the homes.

The same winds brought the smoky smell of dried, burning brush a few miles south, into downtown Waterbury. Several residents there called the fire department concerned, police said Monday.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

It is my understanding from non-media accounts that the first containment line being constructed through the mountain laurel along the north side of the fire was over run, with the (second hand) report that one DEP employee stated it was the first time in 20 years he has had to run for safety on a fire in Connecticut.

I never realized how extensive the pitch pine / scrub oak community is along the Connecticut and Rhode Island border, particularly in Coventry and West Greenwich along the state line. This area is probably around 10 square miles. As this was a major portion of the May, 1942 fires one can imagine the fire spread that would have occurred in such an isolated area. An old rail line runs roughly along the northern side of this pitch pine forest; as the arsonist was a railroad section foreman we’re left to wonder at this time how much that played a roll. Also interesting is why this area is still pitch pine — was it always? Why is the Connecticut side more mature? Was it better attention on the Connecticut side towards re-planting with white pines and more active fire suppression post 1942? Is it simply a difference in soils?

From a firefighting perspective, the difficulties posed by acre after acre of this:

Compared to more typical New England mixed forests:

Is fairly dramatic.

In the latter case, it is relatively easy to construct control lines even if occasional obstacles must be bypassed. A crew using a backpack leaf blower could build quite a bit of line quickly, reinforcing it with a burn out to the body of the main fire.

In the former, in the pitch pine with a thick story of underbrush (probably blueberry or huckleberry; I’ll have to re-visit the area this summer when the leaves are out to tell for sure)…building control lines away from the fire will be much, much more difficult. Backpack blowers are out, at best Council fire rakes might help. With the higher flame heights from brush compared to hardwood leaf litter a wider line is probably needed as well as making a burn out a more risky tactic to try.

Except along established control lines such as roads, it would seem the best tactic is the hot and dirty work of directly attacking the fire along the flanks, hopefully with a hoseline! Lacking that, then with indian tanks and hand tools while making slow progress compared to simple leaf litter, despite having a fire that is burning hotter, higher, and faster to deal with.

West Greenwich saw a continuous decline in population from 2,054 in 1790, to only 367 in 1920.

By 1940 the population had increased to 526. Still very small for it’s 51.3 square miles!

The border between West Greenwich and Coventry, west to the Connecticut border, is a large area of pitch pine and scrub oak. One thing I need to research more is why — is there a change in soil by Connecticut, as well as north and south, that favors more mature forests? Or is this purely a function of repeated fires keeping the pitch pine ecosystem dominant?

I have a lot of photos to parse through from this fire yesterday:

http://www.d90.us/fire/7_April_2010_467_Providence_Pike_Hampton/index.html

Fire came in as a smoke investigation in our district, it was finally located approximately a mile southeast of the calling party, a half mile off the road with no access by heavy vehicles due to recent very heavy rains that have the ground saturated in low spots.

There’s been two interesting things to come out of the Halifax news.

Halifax was struck by Hurricane Juan on 29 September 2003 with 100mph winds, with unofficial gusts to 145mph.

Hurricane intensity in northern waters

While hurricanes this far north tend to weaken their cyclonic wind speeds, they gain forward speed. This is a graphic of that effect from the 1938 Hurricane.(1)

We know historically the hurricanes are one of the major disturbances of forests, probably matched in the degree and geographic area only by ice storms.  Other severe disturbances like tornadoes, straight line winds, and microburts tend to affect much smaller geographic areas.

Here a few comments from 1938:

The combination of soggy ground, strong wind and the sail surface of a full complement of leaves proved too much and many shade and forest trees were broken or blown over by the hurricane. … Practically all older stands of white pine east of the Connecticut River were partially or completely destroyed.  Governor Wilbur Cross appointed committees to make recommendations dealing with Forest Fires, Timber Salvage and Forest Rehabilitation.  Austin Hawes, Hurricane Damaged Forests still a valuable state asset

The fire danger from the downed trees was regarded as a great peril.   The New England Forest Emergency Office was created by the U.S. Forest Serivce to coordinate the effort to mitigate the fire danger and salvage the lumber. United States Forest Service.  A pictorial report on the New England forest emergency project with notes on its operation.

The photo below is from the Harvard collection showing an untouched Pisgah Forest (NH) four years after the ’38 Hurricane, compared to salvaged forests in Petersham, MA and was retrieved from this site.  Keep in mind when reading their perspective (against salvage) that Pisgah and even Petersham are fairly high, cool areas that keep their snow covers later in the year then areas further south and east in New England, and at least with Pisgah are fairly isolated from homes and business.

1942 -- Aftermath of Hurricane of 1938

This is a contemporary report, from 70 miles east of Pisgah, in Lee, N.H. of the conditions of 1941 and looking forward to 1942:

FOREST FIRE WARDEN’S REPORT
The 1941 fire season was the worst on record in the State of New Hampshire.

More fires occurred, more 25 area was burned over, greater damage was done to our woodlands, higher losses were sustained in other real property burned and the cost of suppressing fires was greater.

There will, perhaps, never be more ideal conditions for fire than existed in 1941. A scarcity of rain left the forests in a highly inflammable condition. The accompanying high winds spread fires with almost light- ning rapidity through the parched forest lands. These conditions, coupled with human carelessness, made 1941 outstanding in the state’s forest fire record.

As we approach the 1942 fire season, we wonder just what may be in store for us. The woodlands are in as critical condition as they were last year, if not more so. Blown down trees still clutter sizable acreages of our woodland areas ; the increased tempo in lumbering operations due to war demands are each day adding to the fire hazard an ever increasing number of acres of slash land; and we face the coming fire season with greatly reduced personnel, due to the shifting of men from our small communities into the armed forces of the country and into defense industries.

If, however, everyone will be careful, if they will follow the rules and regulations laid out for the use of fire in and around woodlands, much of our difficulties will be eliminated — our fires kept few in number with a consequent saving of expense to town and state. There are so many possibilities for trouble this year it will require the whole-hearted and patriotic cooperation of everyone concerned if we are to avoid serious difficulties.

Persons hostile to the best interests of our country and subnormal individuals affected by the excitement of the times may easily cause tremendous confusion and disruption of local activities by deliberately starting fires in our woodlands. Suspicious circumstances connected with every fire should be made known to the proper authorities. Wardens and Deputies are being instructed this year to investigate all fires carefully. Parties at fault will be held strictly responsible. With our forces weakened, it becomes more necessary for everyone to comply with regulations which have been set up to govern the use of fire in our woodlands.

These are briefly as follows :

1. Secure a permit from your local forest fire warden to burn brush or other debris in or near woodlands, or where fire may be communicated to such lands, once the snow has left the ground. Violation of this requirement makes the responsible party liable.
a. To a fine not to exceed $500.00 or imprisonment of not more than one year or both.
b. To the town for expenses incurred by the warden in attending or extinguishing such fire.
c. For damage to abutting owners if fire runs upon abutters’ property.

2. DON’T drop or throw from any vehicle while same is upon a public highway or private way and DON’T drop, throw or otherwise deposit on or near woodlands any lighted match, cigar, cigarette, live ashes or any other substance liable to cause a fire. Violation of these prohibitions penalizes whoever is found guilty with a fine of not more than $25.00.

3. DON’T fail to promptly notify your local warden of any fires you see.

The 1941 fire record for Lee is as follows : Number of fires 12 Acreage burned 118 Cost of suppression . . . $757.40 No. of permits issued .

FRANK I. CALDWELL, Forest Fire Warden [, Lee, N.H.].
Retrieved 6 May 2009 from here.

Allowing a forest to “naturally” recover, and that’s a difficult word to define in a southern New England landscape where fire from man has played a role since the glaciers retreated, at the very least requires preparation and defense.  A single careless or deliberate spark in a pile of debris like the Pisgah picture above would ignite a long burning, intense fire that’s likely to seriously damage the organic matter in the soil below.  Good and sufficient fire breaks are needed to keep fires from the outside out, and keep intense fires on the inside from escaping.

Which brings us to this picture from Halifax, whih was taken at a fire which started, in the general the area were the big fire started the next day (archive).   These conditions certainly could be found among the worse of the December 2008 ice storm.

29 April 2009 Halifax Fire

That picture probably illustrates two of the keys in dealing with fires in the ice storm area — hoses and helicopters.  I suspect a third part would be bulldozers to quickly re-open forest roads if necessary.  In my town, in the wake of hurricanes or other severe wind events, we will use a front end loader in conjuction with chainsaws to quickly re-open roads for fire apparatus to pass.  On a major fire you may even see a need for dozers to actually build fire line to push dead brush back into the black.

There was another incident out of Halifax that’s good to keep in mind:

House being investigated for arson

…the investigation began after firefighters arrived at the house to battle the rapidly growing wildfire.

Firefighters realized there was a fire inside the house and “they saw stuff that made them believe that this was a suspicious fire,” he said.

“It didn’t take the investigator long to confirm that it was, indeed, suspicious.” Chronicle-Herald

This is a fire that plays an important part in this blog, which you can read in my welcome post.

This post is not an exhaustive history, but the highlights of some articles I already have in my archives.  Someone mentioned this fire on another forum today, which inspired me to look at my notes again.

By the third day of the fire, some 3,000 men had been put to work on the fire with 400 more soldiers enroute from Niantic and Fort Devens.   It had already destroyed 13 homes.

New York Times article, 1 May 1942

The perils of the fire fighters were undergoing were reflected in countless stories.  One of these was told by Corporal Ralph Walsh of Woonsocket, who had become cut off from his fellow-Guardsmen and was badly hurt before being rescued.

He purposely bogged himself in a swamp when a raging burst of crown fire threatened to bombard him with flaming branches.

“I’ve been a woodsmen for a good many years,” he said, “But I never saw any fire as swift as this one.  The lieutenant sent me for water and I guess I got lost because of the smoke.  The next thing I knew, flames were rushing toward me in the underbrush.  I started running ahead of them.  It was terrible.”

“But you haven’t heard anything yet.  I happened to look up in the air and there above me the flames were leaping from top to top among the pines.  I had to keep going.  Finally I saw an opening in the woods.  I made for it and it was a swamp.  I waded through the mud and that’s the last thing I remember.

New York Times, 3 May 1942

This brief article from the Times said firefighters in Killingly (the town north of Sterling) controlled one fire that had burned one mile wide and three miles long.

Providence, R.I., May 3
With at least three forest fires still burning, although the worst was believed definitely over, Rhode Island State Police recorded today for the first time their convition that the outbeaks, which have spread damage in a sixty-square-mile area since Thursday, were incendiary.

New York Times, 4 May 1942

Hartford, Conn.  May 14 (AP)
The Connecticut and Rhode Island State Police announced jointly tonight the arrest of a man they said admitted starting forest fires which swept a wide area in both States two weeks ago, causing damage estimated as high as three million dollars.
…
Edward Francis LaCasse, 30, of Plainfield…was being held in Kingston, R.I. tonight and a … bench warrant charging arson would be sought in Superior Court at Putnam, Conn., tomorrow.
Arsonist Arrested

Justice moved swiftly in those days — only 8 days later he had been convicted and sent to prison.  He admitted guilt to lighting the Connecticut fire, although it seems he didn’t admit guilt for fires lit in Rhode Island.

I believe (confirmation from two sources now — my father and this post, but no news articles yet that I have seen) that three Rhode Island firefighters died on these fires in a burnover incident when their truck stalled in heavy smoke.  If that is true, it could explain his reluctance to admit guilt specifically to the fire which killed those firefighters.

Putnam, May 22.–(Special..)–Edward F. LaCasse, 30, volunteer fireman, of Plainfield, was taken to State’s Prison in Wethersfield Friday afternoon to begin serving a term of seven to 15 years imposed on arson charges in Windham County Superior Court here earlier…

Many fire ponds were constructed during the Great Depression to provide a ready source of water to fight fires.

Created to ease the financial strains of the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, employed over 3,000,000 young men* between 1933-1942.  The 21 camps in Connecticut provided barrack-style food and housing along with a small monthly stiped.  The men worked o a variety of conservation projects including forest road construction, recreation area development and fire suppression.

A system of fire ponds, each holding a minimum of 7500 gallons of water, served as the main water source for fire suppression in the state forests.  This particular fire pond was probably built by enrollees from Camp Connor in Stafford Springs circa 1936.   The goal of building one pond per 100 acres on state land and one pond per 200 acres on private land was curtailed by the onset of WWII and the closing of the CCC camps.  By 1941, the CCC had completed 404 water holes in the 80,000 acres of state forest and 269 holes on private land.

This fire pond, restored to the original conditionin 2001, illustrates one of several designs utilized by the CCC.

…

Many unrestored fire ponds can discovered along forest roads throughout Shenipsit and Nipmuck State Forest.

From this sign:

Sign at the Mountain Laurel Sanctuary, Nipmuck State Forest, Union, CT

This is the pond it refers to:

Fire pond at Mountain Laurel Sanctuary, Nipmuck State Forest, Union, CT

This is another style of pond:

Fire Pond in Natchaug State Forest, Hampton, CT

My observation is these ponds would have been most useful during the spring fire season, filled by snow melt and spring rains.  In a normal summer today these are dry by mid-summer, and thus not available in the summer and fall fire seasons during a drought.  I doubt this would have been any different seventy years ago.

They would have been useful for filling Indian tanks, as well as portable pumps and hose.

Today forestry agencies around the U.S. continue to improve rural water supplies, often under the auspices of the U.S. Forest Service’s Rural Community Fire Protection cooperative program they administer.

RI Rural Community Fire Protection Program
RC&D [Resource Conservation & Development] partnered with the DEM- Division of Forest Environment to provide rural communities with fire protection assistance. In 2006 RC&D designed, produced, and
distributed 200 Dry Hydrant Guidance Manuals to local fire departments, held four workshops across the state on the program and received 19 applications for dry hydrants from six rural fire departments. When installed these hydrants will improve fire protection for an estimated 13,000 residents of these communities.

Rhode Island Resource Conservation & Development 2006 Annual Report

These static water supplies are considerably larger then the old hand dug fire ponds of the CCC, designed to support both wildland and structural fire protection.  This is a representative dry hydrant installation:

[Photo of the Hampton hydrant will go here, once I find it...]

There is a couple ways to estimate coverage for the old water holes.

One is we can assume a square grid with perfectly even distribution.  100 acres would be approximately 2,000 feet square.  From the center of that square to a side would be 1,000′ while reaching a corner would take 1,400′.

Another is to use a circle centered on the water hole.  A circle 1,200′ in radius would cover approximately 100 acres, while a circle 1,650′ in radius would cover approximately 200′ acres.

* For perspective, the U.S. population in 1940 was 134 Million, of which 5.6 Million were males between the age of 20 and 24.  A proportionately sized program today would employ some 7 Million men, with about 2 Million in active service at any given time.

Connecticut Forest Fires
Norwich, Conn., April 20 [1892] — Forest fires are still raging in this State.  Late last night the flames approached the large manufacturing borough of Willimantic.  A force of railroad men was hurriedly called out, who kindled “back” fires, which stayed the onset of the conflagration.  Later, however, a fire burst out in the woods near the Roman Catholic cemetery, in the suburbs of the borough, and threatened the town, when Rev. Father Debruycker rang a fire alarm and the Willimantic Fire Department was called to the scene.
…
There has been no rain in any amount in Northern New England in six weeks, and the country is as dry as a powder flask.

New York Times

This fire was well before the organization of a state-wide system for forest fire control that began in 1905.  Railroads, however, had good cause to control the fires ignited along their rails since they were liable for damages — and were a frequent cause of them with their spark spewing locomotives.

Subsequent to the advent of the steam railroad in America laws imposing a special liability for damages resulting from a fire set by a locomotive or by the employees of a railroad were enacted in many American states as railroad construction extended from the Atlantic to the southern middle western and far western states.  Almost universally such laws made the fact that a fire had been set by a locomotive prima facie evidence of negligence, and placed upon railroad operators the burden of proving due care on the part of the corporation and its employees if it were to avoid responsibility for the damages suffered. In a few states the liability was made absolute irrespective of the question of due care.

Kinney, Jay P., The development of forest law in America

That made railroad crews (and their local bosses, the “section foreman”) a ready source of labor to work the fires.

113 years ago tomorrow…

Big Forest Fire in Massachusetts
Sandwich, Mass.
April 15 [1896] -- A forest fire started in Cataumet this morning.  It has raged
all day over a tract of land between that place and Sandwich fifteen miles long
and from one to four miles wide, and is not under control. ... Over 100 workmen
from Sandwich are fighting the fire, but they have made little headway. ...
[The fire] is moving in a northeasterly direction, and is within about two miles
of the town.  Backfires are being built all along the main thoroughfares between
Cataumet and Coutuit...
New York Times (archive)

It is interesting sometimes trying to interpret these old news clippings.  Best I can figure the fire was burning northeasterly through the area now largely occupied by the Massachusetts Military Reservation.  Cataumet is southwest, Coutuit southeast, and the “town” — the village named Sandwich — is northeast of MMR*.  It’s unclear to me whether the backfires were being lit to the south to secure the heel of the fire on a line between Cataumet and Coutuit, or was they represent anchor points for backires being lit along the east and west flanks.

A couple other observations:

It was moving northeasterly, so it was being driven by a southwest wind.  Southwest winds are the predominant wind direction in New England in springtime, and are the warmest, driest winds we experience.

Also interesting is the “100 workmen” — a fire today would be measured in thousands of firefighters for an incident that size in that location.  Brett Crosby’s outstanding Capecodfd.com site has a special section that provides a lot of insight into the history of firefighting on the Cape and the peculiar fire problem they face.

But back then you didn’t have automobiles to rapidly assemble and move workers, and you didn’t have the organizations of trained firefighters ready to be called out.  Hiring laborers was a standard practice to deal with fires, something that also appears in this article from Connecticut:

Forest Fire in Connecticut
Middletown, Conn.
Nov. 1. [1897] -- A forest fire is raging on South Mountains, adjacent to the
Air Line Railroad tracks... Four hundred acres of woodland have been burned
over.  A gang of forty Italians have been at work fighting the fire since
Sunday afternoon...
New York Times (archive)

While it would be amusing if “gang of Italians” was an old term for a Type II hand crew, the more likely explanation is Italians at the time were frequently employed as laborers and construction workers.

* Since MMR was founded in 1911, covering 34 sq. miles, the population of the Cape has grown over 700%.(1).  MMR will factor into later historical posts, as it’s the largest piece of primarily open space left on the Cape and over the years some major fires have started in the reservation.