RUMFORD — Amid high fire-danger warnings issued Wednesday, small fires spotted in the afternoon and extinguished in Rumford and Bethel were still being investigated by early evening.
Rumford Deputy Fire Chief Chris Bryant said they were alerted to the fire off Falmouth Street along the Androscoggin River bank by a Mexico firefighter who saw it and radioed a Paris dispatcher at 2:15 p.m.
“It was 25- by-40-ish (feet),” Bryant said. “Leaves and some old logs were burning. A (Catalyst paper) mill security guard had most of it out with a fire extinguisher when we arrived.”
He said he believed the fire was on mill property. Rumford firefighters donned portable fire pump packs and took hand tools and a bucket in to get water out of the river and douse the area as the river was only 15 to 20 feet away from the fire. Maine Forest Ranger Jay Bernard said at the scene that he didn’t have anything to report this early in his investigation.
Earlier in West Bethel, between Route 2 and the railroad tracks, a grass fire broke out and burned a 50- by 100-foot swath before it was extinguished by people on scene and Bethel firefighters, Bethel Assistant Chief Jim Young said.
“Luckily, people were there and they put it out before it got to any buildings,” Young said.
He said there was a lot of broken glass in the area.
“It’s possible for glass to start a fire, but it’s unlikely,” Ranger Brad Bucknell said. “That’s why I want to talk to homeowners when they get home and determine if there were any possible causes, like someone smoking a cigarette.”
Bucknell said a train had gone through the area at 3 a.m., but he didn’t think that sparks from the train ignited the grass.
“It didn’t get too big,” he said of the fire. “It burned about a third of an acre. It was a narrow strip of grass sandwiched between the railroad tracks and Route 2. A neighbor who lives next to the place where the fire started had his garden hose out and was putting the flames out. It was a big help. The fire came within two to three feet of getting into a structure, but they stopped it.”
At the time the fire started, Bucknell said many of the homeowners in the area were gone. While he was investigating that fire, he said another ranger was headed to a fire on an island in Crystal Lake in Gray late Wednesday afternoon.
All of Maine was under a red-flag warning from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, meaning that neither towns nor the forest service would issue burn permits, “nor should there be any open burning,” Bucknell said. “Open burning is the No. 1 cause of grass fires.”
Power lines can also spark fires, he said. “When it’s really, really dry and a wind comes up and knocks down power lines, you’re going to have a fire, anyway.”
Northern parts of western Maine still have another week or two before dry grasses green up, Bucknell said.
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