Crews fight fire on top of mountain

SALISBURY — As The Lake­ville Journal went to press on Tuesday, May 10, a substantial forest fire that had started during the night was still raging in the Bear Mountain area of the Taconic Range. Jason Wilson, chief of the all-volunteer Lake-ville Hose Company, estimated at noon Tuesday that there were between 50 and 70 acres ablaze on the peak, which is the highest peak in the state with a height of 2,316 feet (the highest point in the state, at 2,380 feet, is on Mount Frissel, whose peak is in Massachusetts).The initial 911 call for “an unknown fire” was received at Litchfield County Dispatch at approximately 12 minutes before midnight on Monday, May 9. It was phoned in, according to unofficial reports, by a resident of Taconic Road in Salisbury. By mid-morning on Tuesday, the Lakeville Hose Company had deployed entry teams into the woods to lay hose lines and establish water supplies using streams and brooks. According to First Selectman Curtis Rand, the firefighters are staging from the tennis courts on Mount Riga Corp. land. Land on Mount Riga is in the hands of the corporation, the state, the Nature Conservancy, the federal government and private owners.Hose Company crews were assisted by fire companies from North Canaan, Cornwall, Norfolk and Sheffield, Mass., in addition to a team from the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection forestry unit. The Millerton fire company was standing by to cover for Lakeville and the Salisbury Volunteer Ambulance Service was also on standby.Wilson said Tuesday that he expected it would be at least four to five days before the blaze is fully extinguished. “If we can get it contained within 48 hours, we’ll be doing all right,” he said.The cause of the fire was unknown as of Tuesday, though Wilson said, “We’ve ruled out a lightning strike. So, the cause has to be man-made — a tossed cigarette or the remains of a campfire maybe.”Updates on the fire will be posted online at www.tcextra.com.