WALDOBORO — “We’re hoping that the fire will be out tonight,” said Waldoboro Fire Chief Paul Smeltzer, Tuesday afternoon, June 15, 2021. “Then tomorrow, continue overhaul during the day, and hopefully start moving some equipment back out tomorrow night. Then we’ll start the cleanup, which will also take a long time.”

Tuesday is Day 3 of a forest fire off of the Wagner Bridge Road in Waldoboro, having burned an estimated six acres of hard-to-access region since its inception Sunday afternoon.

“Fortunately, no one’s homes were involved in this,” he said. “The property that was damaged was wild land. But fortunately, there will be regrowth.”

The fire is in a secluded-enough region that at the time of the initial 911 call, Waldoboro firefighters were led to a different location – the Hope Road, off of Washington Road – by residents who could smell smoke outside their home.

“We got on scene [of Hope Road]; definitely was smoke present, but we couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from,” said Smeltzer.

Yet, as the adage goes: where there’s smoke, there’s fire…somewhere. So WFD notified Maine’s Forest Service, which, in turn, initiated the Forestry’s helicopter for fly-overs.

The helicopter spotted the source. WFD changed locations, located and gained forest access through a private road and private property, and then located the fire itself approximately ¾ miles from the forest’s edge.

Once firefighters were situated, the helicopter deposited water drops using water from Medomak Pond, stifling the majority of visible flames from the air.

Fighting wild land fires is not comparable to extinguishing blazes on the outside of a wall, where flames have a good chance of being doused when hoses are aimed in a general direction.

Some of the Wagner sparks descend between 12 and 16 inches into the ground, requiring dig outs and saturation, according to Smeltzer.

Since Sunday, area firefighters have been working on the individual ground smolders spreading into the duff – the pine needles and the moss, and other ground cover sparking to fire.

Sixty firefighters from Lincoln and Knox counties responded Sunday afternoon and night. Thirty firefighters came Monday, a dozen helped on Tuesday.

Did the Monday night rain help?

“I would have liked a lot more of it,” said Smeltzer. “The little bit that we got kept the dust down this morning when we were up there working. But it didn’t do much to help us as far as putting the fire out.”

Responders have been accessing the remote area via Waldoboro’s Engine 4, which is a four-wheel drive International set up for forest and wildland fires. That’s the only Waldoboro truck that’s been up there, according to Smeltzer.

WFD has also called upon the forestry trucks of other towns, such as Washington and Union, as well as UTVs from mutual aid and Knox County EMA.

Along with gear and personnel, they haul water in portable pumps, supplied from a pond on the property.

“We’re talking about 2,000 feet to a dump tank, and pumping it again from there out to the fire scene,” he said.

A sergeant from Forestry was on scene all day Monday working to determine a cause. The cause, however, remains under investigation, according to Smeltzer.

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com