Crews busy putting down Westhampton fires

Westhampton firefighters extinguish a blaze at 147 Northwest Road Thursday afternoon.">

By Owen Boss

Staff Writer

WESTHAMPTON - Firefighters have had their hands full lately, responding to three fires in just two days.

At 2:30 p.m. Thursday, the Fire Department responded to 147 Northwest Road for a report that a homeowner had returned home from work to find three or four brush piles on his front lawn burning out of control.

"I left for work this morning at about 6 a.m. and when I got back this afternoon the flames on these brush piles were already 15 feet high," owner Rick Rheault said. "I ran inside and got on the phone with the Fire Department because I knew there was nothing that I could do."

To extinguish the blaze, which didn't damage Rheault's home but destroyed roughly an acre of his front lawn, Westhampton enlisted the support of the Chesterfield and Williamsburg Fire departments, which supplied brush and tanker trucks. More than 10 firefighters used foam and water to douse the flames and after cutting downed trees into sections with chain saws, the fire was seemingly under control by 3:30 p.m.

Capt. Bill Jablonski said the cause of the fire was unknown and rather than investigate, the department will simply take the homeowner at his word. Thursday afternoon's fire came on the heels of two other fires this week, a major brush fire in Russell and an electrical malfunction in an attic on Main Road.

"We've definitely been busy the last few days," Jablonski said Thursday. "We had four guys working out in Russell all day yesterday putting down a brush fire and last night we had another call."

The fire Wednesday in Russell, which drew more than 30 firefighters from a wide variety of towns, scorched more than 60 acres at the end of South Quarter Road near Cobble Mountain Reservoir over the course of two days.

Then at about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night, firefighters from Northampton, Westhampton, Easthampton, Huntington, Southampton, Williamsburg and Chesterfield responded to 47 Main Road for a report that faulty electrical equipment had sparked a small fire in the attic of a three-story home. An electrician was called to the scene, Jablonski said, and after power was cut to the attic firefighters deemed the home safe.

Although they have had to respond to a number of mutual aid requests from surrounding towns, Jablonski said with the amount of forestry land in Westhampton, it has been a relatively quiet burning season.

"Technically this would only be our second response to a brush fire this season," Jablonski said. "It's been a pretty good burning season for us. We are very fortunate that we haven't had any major problems."

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.