
Alec Linden
“The little bit of rain we got overnight won’t put a dent in this,” said Kent Fire Marshall Timothy Limbos about the light showers that fell on the Northwest Corner on the night of Oct. 29.
Historically dry conditions persist across much of the Northeast, prompting officials in many municipalities to prohibit outdoor fires of any kind. As of Nov. 5, Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection lists all counties in the state as facing “extreme” fire danger, while New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation classifies the southern part of the state as under “high” fire risk, with northern and western regions under “moderate” and “low” designations.
In his 20 years as public information officer for Norfolk, Jon Barbagallo has never seen fire conditions as perilous as those that have developed this fall. “Fires happen every year in Connecticut, we just don’t see them to the extent that we see them now,” Barbagallo said.
On Oct. 25, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont declared a State of Emergency due to the critical fire conditions as the dry weather continues.
The National Weather Service predicts little to no rain over the next week for the region alongside unseasonably warm temperatures.
“It may stay this way for a while,” said Cornwall First Selectman Gordon Ridgway, who is also a volunteer firefighter. “The woods are much more volatile with the leaves on the ground,” he said, indicating that the recently fallen foliage has added another fuel source to the tinder-dry forest floor.
On Oct. 30, Ridgway issued a burn ban for the town of Cornwall, joining many other municipalities in the region that have placed similar restrictions. All Litchfield County towns except Hartland have declared burn bans as of Nov. 1 according to an NBC Connecticut Report, and the environmental protection department has imposed a burn ban on all state parks, forests, and wildlife management areas. In New York, the towns of Hillsdale, North East, Pine Plains, Amenia, Stanford, and Washington have also enacted emergency burn bans, barring all outdoor fire activity and nulling burn permits while the order is in place.
North East Town Supervisor Chris Kennan said in a public communication on Nov. 1 that “the town of North East, along with all the other towns around us, has issued an order prohibiting outdoor burning,” which will remain in effect until further notice.
In her Oct. 25 announcement, Stanford Town Supervisor Wendy Burton urged residents to keep their neighbors and first responders in mind as the unusual weather conditions continue. “Let’s protect our community and firefighters,” she said in the notice.
Legislators and fire officials were careful to drive in the message before holiday excitement distracted residents from the danger. “Please do not have any campfires during the Halloween festivities,” Limbos said.
A red flag warning was issued again for all of Connecticut and the lower Hudson Valley on Friday, Nov. 1, following an Oct. 26 red flag warning for all of southern New England. The warnings are short-notice alerts meant to notify fire officials that conditions are highly conducive to wildfire ignition and rapid spread, and are rare in the Northeast.
As of Nov. 3, the environmental protection department identifies two active fires in Connecticut, the fire burning on Lamentation Mountain in Berlin known as the Hawthorne fire, and a smaller blaze in Lebanon which is managed. The organization is also monitoring 95 fires across all regions of the state.
“It’s really good that this region has mutual aid,” Ridgway said.
Barbagallo is a testament to the collaborative nature of Connecticut’s response force, having been part of the Incident Command Post at the Hawthorne Fire since the Post was activated on Oct. 22.
Barbagallo said he was helping plan the wake and funeral for Wethersfield firefighter Robert Sharkevich Sr., who died while combating the Hawthorne Fire on Oct. 22, when he got a call that a car accident had ignited two brush fires on Route 44 in Norfolk. “I left the meeting that evening to go to Norfolk when I heard how big they were getting,” he said.
The Route 44 fires, which were caused by downed electrical wires, were extinguished after two hours, but their rapid growth left an impression on Barbagallo: “It really shows how dry the conditions are across the state.”
A swath stretching across the entire northern border of Connecticut, as well as a corner of Fairfield County, is currently experiencing “moderate drought” (D1) conditions, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System, a subsidiary of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The area comprises 13.8% of the state’s land area and includes approximately 400,000 residents. The rest of the state is categorized as “abnormally dry” (D0) by the drought information system, alongside most of southern New York.
A small area surrounding the tri-state border in New York is also experiencing moderate drought.
NIDIS predicts that drought will persist in areas already experiencing D1 conditions in the region through November, and that drought conditions will continue to develop in D0 zones.
Until substantial rainfall arrives, Barbagallo asks residents to “be respectful of the guidance from the state and the local fire department.”
“We’re going to be the ones who have to put [the fires] out,” he said.
Glastonbury High School crew attempted to battle wind and white caps on Lake Waramaug at the Kent Invitational that was ultimately cancelled, May 10.
KENT — The annual Kent Invitational regatta on Lake Waramaug did not start this year due to strong winds of 30 miles per hour on Saturday, May 10.
The gusts caused white caps on the lake's surface and boats were unable to stay in lane or arrange on the starting line.
An initial starting time delay ultimately led to a full cancellation at 2 p.m.
GREAT BARRINGTON — Attarilm Mcclennon woke up on Tuesday morning to see a man standing on the fire escape and talking on the phone outside his apartment building in Barrington House.
When Mcclennon stepped out into the hallway that connects Main Street with the Triplex parking lot, he saw another man lingering there.
Mcclennon, who works at his family’s Momma Lo’s Southern Style BBQ downstairs, said he stepped outside to the unfolding commotion in the parking lot as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested two immigrants who live and work in the building.
But soon Mcclennon realized something — the man on the fire escape and the other one in the building looked a little familiar.
“I realized those two dudes have been walking through this hallway all week,” he said, adding that it was during the daytime.
Mcclennon’s brother, Ahmed Mcclennon, said that he also noticed a similar type of surveillance of the building last summer that he believes may have been ICE or other law enforcement.
Attarilm Mcclennon right, saw the arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday morning unfold at the Barrington House apartments where he lives and works.HEATHER BELLOW — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
The May 6 arrests are the latest to rattle the Berkshires as federal authorities pursue President Trump’s aggressive mission to deport or otherwise remove undocumented immigrants. A March crackdown resulted in the capture of at least 10 people in the Berkshires — and 370 statewide.
While the administration has said it would target undocumented people with criminal records, there have been numerous examples of agents detaining people who have never been charged with a crime.
It is unclear why ICE targeted these men. An ICE spokesperson did not respond to requests for information.
Tuesday’s raid took place on a busy morning in the heart of downtown. It shook bystanders and drew people out from Rubi’s Cafe and The Triplex Cinema.
Videos shared with The Eagle show people videotaping the arrests and asking ICE officers questions about warrants and due process. Others taunted the officers, most of whom were masked and heavily armed. Avery Ripley, who works at Rubi’s captured video, including that of a drone overhead.
As officers walked one of the men they arrested down the fire escape from his apartment, one person was heard saying they “love America,” and thanked the officers for “doing their jobs.”
Mcclennon said that one of the men arrested works at Fiesta Bar and Grill, which is across the hall from Momma Lo’s, and asked the Mcclennons to call his boss.
Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti said the department received a phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security around 5:30 a.m. to let them know that they were in the area.
Barrington House owner Richard Stanley said he did not know the tenant personally, and expressed dismay at what he called “gestapo” tactics he says are meant to “intimidate.”
Ben Elliott, a Select Board member who works at The Triplex Cinema, was arriving at work when he saw the commotion. He also videotaped one of the arrests.
Elliott said he had heard that ICE also may have also arrested someone off Bridge Street near Quick Print and the Berkshire Food Co-op around 7:30 a.m.
The ICE arrests involved multiple unmarked vehicles, some heavily armed law enforcement officials and a drone.
Seeing that one of the officers had a battering ram to break the apartment door down, the building’s maintenance director Sean O’Brien got his keys ready. But that turned out not to be necessary, he said.
“None of that came to pass,” O’Brien said. “They knocked on the door and he opened the door and surrendered himself.”
Some bystanders confronted O’Brien, thinking he was helping ICE — which he and witnesses and Barrington House tenants said that was far from the truth.
“They turned on me,” O’Brien said. “It just ruffled my feathers up a little bit because they had the completely wrong idea of what happened."
“A woman was screaming into the window, ‘You called them, you called them,’” O’Brien said of the accusation that he had called ICE.
O’Brien did call local police to keep the peace and stop the trespassing.
Hearing this, Mcclennon’s brother Ahmed Mcclennon, said of O’Brien, “He’s the coolest man in the world. He would be the last person to do that.”
And O’Brien said that ICE officers were “very polite and professional to [the tenant],” and “were not abusive or anything like that.”
He also said that one of the men arrested is, “to the best of my knowledge, a very, very nice guy and a hard worker.”
“I would be very surprised,” O’Brien said, “if he were guilty of some extra crime that brought their attention to him.”
Heather Bellow is a reporter for The Berkshire Eagle.
LAKEVILLE — ARADEV LLC, the developer behind the proposed redesign of Wake Robin Inn, returned before Salisbury’s Planning and Zoning Commission at its May 5 regular meeting with a 644-page plan that it says scales back the project.
ARADEV withdrew its previous application last December after a six-round public hearing in which neighbors along Wells Hill Road and Sharon Road rallied against the proposal as detrimental to the neighborhood.
Landscape Architect Mark Arigoni, representing the applicants, said the new proposal’s page count is due to it being “very comprehensive and complete,” built in response to feedback from P&Z at a January pre-application meeting.
Much of P&Z’s criticism of the initial proposal revolved around its size and intensity, which commissioners said was incongruent with the neighborhood.
Arigoni briefly summarized the major changes of the new application, saying the number of cottages had been decreased from 12 to four, though each will now span about 2,000-square-feet as opposed to the maximum of 1,100 square feet of the earlier proposed array.
An “event barn,” which was one of the more contentious aspects of the initial application, has been relocated to be a part of the expanded main inn building, as opposed to its previous position as a detached structure.
Arigoni highlighted that a noise study — the lack of which was one of P&Z major criticisms of the first proposal — had been conducted in February and March, analyzing the levels of slamming car doors, traffic, waste collection vehicles and other ambient noise components of an active hotel site. He also explained that a new architectural firm had been contracted: “I think you will all see the changes to the plan, in terms of context and character.”
P&Z Chair Michael Klemens stressed that no action would be taken at the May 5 meeting. ARADEV will appear before the Commission again at its May 19 meeting, where P&Z will discuss the application’s completeness and potentially schedule a public hearing, which “will come a lot later,” Klemens said.
The application comes in the midst of ongoing litigation against the Commission relating to ARADEV’s first application. Angela and William Cruger, Wells Hill Road neighbors of the Inn who formally intervened in the 2024 hearing, filed a restraining order against the Commission in February alleging that it engaged in unlawful “spot zoning” that favored the Wake Robin expansion when it altered a regulation in May 2024 to allow for hotels via special permit in the Rural-Residential 1 zone.
Klemens announced that P&Z is opposing the restraining order. If it is approved by the judge, though, the May 2024 regulations would be declared invalid and the Commission would not be able to review applications pertaining to them, which includes ARADEV’s proposal.
FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School girls lacrosse kept rolling Tuesday, May 6, with a decisive 18-6 win over Lakeview High School.
Eight different players scored for Housatonic in the Northwest Corner rivalry matchup. Sophomore Georgie Clayton led the team with five goals.
The Mountaineers' record advanced to 5-1 with a cumulative 41-point goal differential halfway through the season. The lone loss came at Watertown High School on April 10.
Georgie Clayton draws four Lakeview defenders. She scored five goals in the game May 6.Photo by Riley Klein
"We will be playing [Watertown] in the championship on the 28th of May," declared Coach Laura Bushey at the midway point of the 2025 season. Last year, HVRHS lost to St. Paul Catholic High School by one point in the Western Connecticut Lacrosse Conference championship.
The game against Lakeview May 7 went on despite ominous cloud cover at starting time. Rain earlier in the day made for a wet field, but the clouds parted by the second quarter for a sunny afternoon of lacrosse.
HVRHS wasted no time setting the tone. Georgie Clayton repeatedly sliced and diced her way through midfield to create offensive opportunities for the Mountaineers, who took a 7-1 lead in the first quarter.
Tessa Dekker elevates for one of her three goals against Lakeview May 6.Photo by Riley Klein
The lead grew to 11-3 by halftime. Seniors Lola Clayton and Tessa Dekker created a one-two punch on attack with Dekker setting up plays from behind the net as Clayton cut to the crease. The pair combined for five goals in the game.
Once the lead extended to double digits in the second half, the clock ran continuously. Lakeview found scoring chances but HVRHS sophomore goalie Sophia DeDominicis-Fitzpatrck saved more shots (7) than she let by.
The game ended 18-6 in favor of HVRHS.
Lola Clayton bounces a shot past the Lakeview defense.Photo by Riley Klein
The following players scored for the Mountaineers: Georgie Clayton (5), Tessa Dekker (3), Lola Clayton (2), Islay Sheil (2), Katie Crane (2), Annabelle Carden (2), Mollie Ford (1) and Chloe Hill (1).
Lakeview's goals were scored by Layla Jones (2), Isabelle Deforge (2), Juliana Bailey (1) and Caroline Donnelly (1).Goalie Sophia DeDominicis-Fitzpatrick secures the ball.Photo by Riley Klein