WILMINGTON, MASS. (WHDH) - Firefighters responded to a brush fire in Wilmington, near the Woburn line, earlier Thursday afternoon.
Crews from several agencies arrived on scene as the blaze crackled through several acres of Wilmington’s town forest.
North Reading and Middleton brought in tanker trucks as officials used a drone to try to find the source of the smoke.
“We have crews on it now. We’re estimating somewhere around three to four acres of land that’s burning currently,” said Wilmington Fire Chief Bill Cavanaugh.
Officers from the Massachusetts Environmental Police took to the woods on all-terrain vehicles while a district warden from Department of Conservation and Recreation Forest Fire Control used a GPS mapping system to share the exact location of the fire with crews.
Firefighters are using caution so they don’t get injured.
“The fire catches into the base, burns into the roots because of the drought, and we have possible trees on the firefighters so that’s a ‘watch out’ situation,” said Brian Mayer, district warden of DCR Fire Control. “You would keep a distance, put risk management into place.”
The fire is surrounded on three sides by water, and the Maple Meadow Brook is a natural barrier. However, the wind and drought conditions allow the fire to thrive.
“We haven’t had a lot of rain, as the DCR rep had stated, it’s real dry so it runs extra fast even though we have water around it, which is what’s keeping it at bay on three sides for us. That’s actually a huge help to us currently,” Cavanaugh said.
The woods were still ablaze as of 4 p.m.
This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
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