Trailer park residents pitch in to quell blaze Forest fire in Levant burns half-acre near homes

LEVANT – Quick action by residents likely saved their homes from a forest fire that officials believe was started purposely by two teenage boys. The fire threatened more than 15 homes in a trailer park on Sinclair Road and kept fire officials working late Tuesday night.

“It’s being investigated, but from what I understand there were two teens out here playing with a lighter,” Levant Fire Chief Kevin Perry said during a break between battling flare-ups and hot spots. “This will be an all-night event digging it out and making sure it doesn’t light up again.”

Around 6 p.m. residents of a trailer park on Sinclair Road noticed smoke from a fire burning in the forest several hundred yards away from the nearest trailer.

Charles Watson’s wife woke him up to tell him about the fire, he said. “The first thing that crossed my mind was that I was going to lose my home.”

But Watson and nearly a dozen other park residents weren’t ready to give up their homes.

“We grabbed some rakes and shovels and tried to dig up around the fire and take away the fuel around it,” park resident Rodney Adams said. “We all basically did what we had to do to save our homes.”

The group worked for more than 20 minutes before fire officials from Levant, Stetson, Kenduskeag, Corinth, Hermon and the Maine Forest Service arrived. Capital Ambulance was also on hand and treated one firefighter for asthma and one civilian, who had fought the fire, for allergies.

Nearly 100 firefighters worked in shifts, with 50 working at once at the height of the blaze, to pinch the forest fire from two sides as it moved uphill with a breeze at its back, Perry said.

The group doused the majority of the flames within a couple of hours, but hot spots continued to flare up well into the evening.

Nearly a half-acre of forest and underbrush burned, but Perry thought that was lucky.

“To keep this fire from spreading all over this place is just incredible and is a testament to the work of everyone here today,” Perry said. “The people from the trailer park did a tremendous job in slowing down the fire until we got here.”