August 12, 2010

Four towns help put out Goffstown fire

GOFFSTOWN - Firefighters from four different towns spent hours Monday working with the Goffstown Fire Department to put out a 1.5-acre brush fire that started in the morning about a half a mile from the end of Worthley Hill Road.

A hiker on Uncanoonuc Mountain saw smoke coming up from the woods and called the fire department at approximately 10:30 a.m.  Since there are no hydrants nearby, water had to be trucked in to put out the fire.

Firefighters from Weare, Hooksett, Bedford and New Boston assisted Goffstown, and also fought the fire alongside state forestry crews.  

Goffstown Fire Chief Richard O'Brien, in an interview with the NH Union Leader during the effort to put out the fire, was quoted as saying, "A lot of the trees that had been knocked down in previous storms -- from the ice storms in recent years -- are all down on the floor of the forest, and all that stuff is burning.  So it's a lot of work to get those logs and trees out, and it takes a significant amount of water and manpower to do that."

O'Brien also told the Union Leader that he didn't know what caused the fire.

"We can only surmise in this area that it could have been a hiker going through or it could have been a lightning strike from a recent storm," O'Brien said. "We won't know that until after we investigate it."

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