Fire destroys Sullivan forest

SULLIVAN – The cause of a 124-acre forest fire Sunday off Route 183 has not been determined but is under investigation by the Maine Forest Service, according to the local fire chief.

More than 100 firefighters from 22 Hancock County towns responded to the alarm after smoke was reported coming from the woods north of Morancy Pond Road around 1:30 p.m., Sullivan Fire Chief Joe Fountaine said.

Residents from a mile-long stretch of Route 183 were evacuated from their homes, and firefighters closed the highway to nonemergency traffic as flames 40 feet high pushed north through the woods toward Flanders Pond, Fountaine said.

No one was injured.

A junk car at the Sullivan transfer station on Route 183 was scorched by the flames, and a grove of farmed Christmas trees was destroyed. No homes or buildings were damaged, according to the chief, who said the area was “real lucky.”

Fountaine said a similar forest fire was a 1994 blaze that burned 100 acres off Punkinville Road.

Sunday’s blaze was so large it seemed to whip up the ocean breeze that fed it, he said.

“You could feel the wind sucking right into it,” Fountaine said.

It took firefighters roughly four hours to get the blaze under control, the chief said. Without quick response from other departments in Hancock County, he said, it could have been worse.

Although the fire’s cause was unclear, Ranger Rick Henion said, it likely did not have natural causes.

“In the springtime, we don’t have lightning storms, and lightning is about the only cause for forest fires in Maine,” Henion said. “It’s a pretty safe bet to say there was a human element in this.”

The dry conditions and the light wind contributed to the size of the Sunday afternoon fire, Henion said.

Firefighters approached the fire from Route 183, also known as Tunk Lake Road, and from Morancy Pond Road before the fire advanced north toward the state highway.

A Maine Forest Service helicopter scooped water out of Morancy Pond and dumped it onto the towering flames as firefighters set up a staging area at the transfer station.

Laura Eastman of Trenton said she was helping relatives work on their unoccupied house overlooking Morancy Pond when she spotted the fire about a quarter-mile away.

“We were out here painting and we saw all the smoke,” Eastman said as she stood on the front porch of the home. She and her family retreated inside as the Forest Service helicopter repeatedly circled the house and lowered its catch basin into the pond to scoop up another load of water.

Chris Eklund said he was working on putting in a new swimming pool at his home on Route 183 when his aunt called to tell him about the approaching forest fire.

He quickly loaded his wife and children and a few possessions into his truck and got them out of there, he said.

“I went and looked and [the flames] were right there,” Eklund said.

Despite feeling some urgency Sunday, Eklund said, he has been through fires before and was more concerned about his neighbors than he was about himself.

“I wasn’t too worried,” he said.