California Hotshots Help Fight Hawthorne Fire – NBC Connecticut

Emergency management officials in Connecticut were monitoring 93 fires Friday morning, all in varying stages.

Two crews from other states, one from Quebec, Canada and one from California, took part in the firefight.

The California crew, the Groveland Hotshots, is a multi-agency hotshot crew working for the US Forest Service. They help with disaster relief, especially fires. The 22-person crew took four days to get here and plans to work for 14 days before heading back to California. It was her first time in Connecticut.

“It was quite an interesting job but we weren't too surprised (due to the dry weather conditions). We come with our chainsaws, torches and hand tools and have the ability to split up into many different crews and actually tackle several different fires at the same time,” said Steven Meeks, the superintendent of the Groveland Hotshots.

On Friday, the Groveland Hotshots were assigned to battle the southeast and east sides of the Hawthorne Fire in Berlin.

Last week, the Department of Energy and Environmental Services talked about requiring wildfire firefighters to physically dig a poker around the fire and try to contain it. The Groveland Hotshots are providing additional reinforcements to continue this work.

They have a team that initially works with chainsaws, cutting branches and moving vegetation and brush. Then another 16 people with hand tools will go behind that crew and dig into the dirt where the fire can no longer penetrate.

“The problem here in the East is obviously all the leaves and how quickly they fall at this time of year. From what I understand, they got through, put linen in, and were able to be completely covered with leaves again the next day. Or areas that they had already mopped that then burned down and went black again, so at this point it's hard to even tell what was burned and what wasn't. So you have to keep pushing through,” Meeks said.

With the red flag warning on Friday, emergency management officials urged people to be extra vigilant and avoid any type of flames.

“One of the fires involved an individual in the town of Ellington who was mulching leaves with his riding lawnmower. This is very common this time of year. The leaves gathered and got near an exhaust pipe, starting a fire. “He wasn’t able to stomp out the leaves fast enough and it ended up being a quarter-acre fire,” said Rich Schenk, DEEP fire marshal.