Tinder-dry conditions and spiking temperatures were only two of the challenges firefighters faced as they worked to extinguish a brushfire that burned some 20 to 25 acres of grasslands in Hither Hills State Park on Friday night and then rekindled on Saturday. Equally challenging was the fire’s difficult-to-reach location between Goff Point and the Walking Dunes, more than a mile from any paved road.
A call from Cranberry Hole Road in Amagansett, shortly after 7 p.m. on Friday, first alerted emergency personnel to the fire. It was near high tide, making access from the beach — the most direct route — “limited, because the tide was coming up and we were losing the beach,” said Montauk Fire Chief Scott Snow on Saturday morning. “We had one truck make it out there, and then the state parks department had an A.T.V. to transport people.”
That section of the park, a peninsula bounded by Napeague Harbor on the southwest and Napeague Bay on the north, is riddled with wetlands, making it hard to find a solid route through the interior. Steep embankments made it hard for vehicles to get to the fire from the outer beach.
The Montauk Fire Department responded, with mutual aid from Amagansett, East Hampton, Sag Harbor, and Bridgehampton, but, hampered by the terrain, the departments had trouble getting firefighters to the remote location.
One brush truck became bogged down in marshy conditions. Another got stuck in the sand. Larger trucks “all got hung up somehow,” Chief Snow said, “but everybody helped and got one another out.” Firemen attempted to reach the scene from the south, through Hither Woods, but were unable to find a reliable route.
As the effort continued, firefighters were called upon to use their personal four-wheel-drive vehicles to transport personnel and supplies to the scene. They arrived, bit by bit, in smaller vehicles, and attacked the flames with backpack water cans.
As darkness fell, the challenges were compounded. “The terrain was tough, it was night,” Chief Snow said. On the one hand, there was the problem of how to get people to the fire; on the other was the question of where all of the hotspots were.
A Suffolk County police helicopter was called in to locate the hotspots and to illuminate the area so personnel could find a path to the flames. The East Hampton Police Department also brought in its drones to locate hotspots so firefighters could douse them with water. “It was hard to get to get a grip on what we were watching,” Chief Snow said.
Some 60 to 70 firefighters aided in the effort on Friday night, with Napeague Harbor Road and the Hither Hills West Overlook serving as staging areas.
At one point, as they made their way north of the Long Island Rail Road tracks that bisect Hither Woods, an eastbound train headed from Amagansett to Montauk was stopped between Napeague Meadow and Napeague Harbor Roads and returned to Amagansett. This was a precaution taken because brush trucks and men were crossing back and forth over the tracks, Chief Snow said.
By 11:30 p.m. Friday, all personnel and vehicles were back on pavement. However, on Saturday around 1 p.m., firefighters were again called to the scene when some pockets of fire reignited. This time, Springs firefighters also helped out. Department vehicles could reach the location at that time of day, and “we had trucks soak the ground,” Chief Snow said.
Firefighters finally left the scene after about four and a half hours. Overnight on Saturday, state park personnel monitored the area and dealt with “a couple of flare-ups.” The State Department of Environmental Conservation sent members of its forestry service there on Sunday to keep an eye on things, and on Monday, Chief Snow said, “We were called for a rekindle, which was just a smoldering log.”
“The biggest thing, with this drought we’re in, is to be careful with fire and what you’re doing outdoors,” he added. Whether with beach fires, fires in backyard fire pits, or fireworks, “all it takes is one ember to go flying 100 feet.”
As for the Hither Hills fire, “we were very fortunate,” the chief said. “Nobody got hurt; we didn’t lose any equipment. It was a great effort by all the departments and everybody working hard there.”
