Brush Fire Scorches An Acre At Shady Rest

By Andrew Gorosko

Amid very dry conditions, firefighters on the afternoon of March 30 responded to an accidental brush fire, which scorched approximately one acre at the Shady Rest neighborhood in Sandy Hook.

Sandy Hook, Botsford, Hook & Ladder, Hawleyville, and Southbury firefighters were dispatched.

Sandy Hook Fire Chief Bill Halstead said there were no injuries or property damage in the incident, which was reported at 3:25 pm.

An unidentified 17-year-old boy who lives at 3 Shady Rest Boulevard was cleaning up a “burn pit” on that property, and then decided to burn some unspecified items that were in the pit, Chief Halstead said.

However, conditions were very dry at the time and some wind was blowing, so the fire in the pit got out of control and spread across the ground, the fire chief said.

The boy apparently thought that burning the items in the burn pit would not pose hazards, but the fire spread due to dry, windy conditions, Chief Halstead said.

The fire quickly spread up a steep hillside and approached a house on Walnut Tree Hill Road. Before firefighters extinguished the blaze, the fire got to within 25 feet of that house and to within ten feet of a shed there, he said.

It took about 30 minutes to control the fire. Firefighters spent about two hours at the scene.

Chief Halstead noted that the boy took responsibility for the mishap, calling firefighters to the scene after the blaze had spread outward from the burn pit.    

In battling the fire, firefighters were concerned that the blaze would spread to nearby houses, but fortunately the fire was extinguished before that happened, Chief Halstead said.

Firefighters used water stored on their trucks to put out the brush fire, he said.