Aircraft in No-Fly Zone Delays Water Drops at CT Brush Fire

Oct. 25—BERLIN — As a large brush fire continues to burn on Lamentation Mountain, state and local authorities said air-drops of water were delayed in some cases Thursday due to aircraft in the no-fly zone.

"Over the afternoon hours we had to ground our aircraft multiple times due to aircraft in our flight area," Berlin Fire Chief John Massirio said at a news conference Friday morning.

As of Thursday night, 125 buckets containing 127,000 gallons of water from nearby Silver Lake had been dumped on the fire by National Guard aircraft.

Meanwhile, firefighters were taking precautions to protect some local homes, but no evacuation order had been issued for local residents as of Friday.

There also were multiple other brush fires burning throughout the state, including in Oxford, but none involving more than 10 acres, said Tom Trask with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Some of the water-drop assets may be diverted to Oxford, Trask said. Otherwise, officials were pressing forward in an attempt to get the Berlin brush fire under control by the end of the weekend, they said.

The fire, more complex due to the timing and the fact a firefighter died battling the blaze, is not the largest in recent history, DEEP officials said.

It is "occurring during a prolonged dry spell requiring more strategic planning given multiple concurrent in-state fires," said DEEP spokesperson Will Healey. "Our most recent large fire was the 2017 Flat Rocks Fire in Cornwall that burned over 200 acres September through mid-December until first snowfall."

During a briefing for crews battling the blaze Friday morning, officials said crews should make sure to blow out any leaves before finishing their shift. Bulldozers were working to clear areas so that more water resources could be brought in and firefighters were warned that water-drops from aircraft would be resuming shortly.

Firefighters were aware of a fire line behind homes in the area of Sea Green Drive Lane, Massirio said Thursday night.

"We've received calls from some of the residents in the area concerned about that line coming further toward their house," the chief said during a news conference. "We do want to assure everybody we have been up there monitoring it, we've had some crews in there, protection has been put in place."

The chief said the protective measures in place were sprinklers designed for wildfire applications, fed by hydrants in the area. The sprinklers wet down the area between the fire and the homes.

In one photo posted to social media by the fire department, the fire line was visible behind a single-family home, appearing as a glowing orange line.

"We have the utmost confidence that that protection is adequate to keep the residents and the homes in that area safe," Massirio said Thursday night. He said ground crews were pulled back overnight due to the terrain.

"On that note, there are still no evacuation orders in place," the fire chief added.

The blaze, which authorities have dubbed the Hawthorne Fire, has burned since Monday afternoon, drawing a large response from local, state and federal crews. One Wethersfield volunteer firefighter, Robert Sharkevich Sr., a veteran of the Hartford Fire Department, was killed Tuesday in an accident involving a utility vehicle, officials said.

Officials weren't clear on the origin of the name when asked about it earlier this week. But Berlin fire officials initially reported the fire's location east of Sea Green Drive Lane and Bannon Lane, both roads that sit off Hawthorne Drive, a private gated road off the Berlin Turnpike.

Two helicopters from the Connecticut National Guard, as well as a third helicopter from Maine, were used to dump water from nearby Silver Lake in recent days.

The Army pilots from the Connecticut National Guard dumped more than 100,000 gallons of water on the blaze on Thursday, said Maj. Mike Wilcoxson, a guard spokesperson.

Officials also repeatedly asked the public to stay away from the scene, saying they'd had multiple incursions from both drone and aircraft pilots, and from people on the ground.

Toward the evening hours, two drones and three planes entered into the area, along with two ATVs on the ground, Massirio said.

"Thankfully, the incursions didn't contribute to the growth of the fire, we just feel that without the delays, because our aircraft has to get grounded during that, without those delays we could have probably made a little better forward progress," the chief said.

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