Massachusetts is dealing with widespread wildfires and severe drought, both of which heighten the risk of additional fires. MassWildlife staff are assisting the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and local fire departments in the ongoing effort to contain wildfires across the state. MassWildlife recommends that when venturing into the woods, please take the following precautions to keep yourself and others safe:

 

• Stay away from active fires. Some may appear out but could still have a fire burning underground. A map of active fires can be accessed at https://data.usatoday.com/fires/.   Call 911 to report new fires.
• Extinguish and dispose of smoking materials such as cigarette butts appropriately.
• When visiting wooded areas, park vehicles away from dry grass and leaves.
• Avoid recently burned areas because of the risk of falling trees weakened by fire.
• If you see or smell smoke, be safe and leave the woods. Fire can move quickly under windy conditions.
• Refrain from any outdoor activity involving open flames. There is a ban on outdoor open burning statewide.

 

They further suggest that in addition to taking precautions while enjoying the outdoors, your actions at home can make a difference in preventing wildfires and conserving water. About 45 percent of Massachusetts homes are in or near areas at severe wildfire risk, meaning that any significant fire will put people and property in danger. To help reduce the risk, you can find tips on water conservation and fire prevention at:  https://www.mass.gov/conservewater, and https:www.mass.gov/news/Governor-Healey-thanks-firefighters-asks-public to-do-their-part-to contain-fire-risk.

In his latest report to the Berkshire County League of Sportsmen, MassWildlife Western District Supervisor Andrew Madden reported that Western District staff, qualified in wildland firefighting, provided support for the Montgomery Fire Department and DCR Fire Control responding to a brush fire in Montgomery.  The fire occurred on land owned by the City of Westfield and conserved as the Westfield Watershed Wildlife Conservation Easement by MassWildlife. He also gave us some unsettling statistics.

 

According to figures provided by the Massachusetts DCR Bureau of Forest Fire Control and Forestry, the average occurrence of brush fires in MA in November is 21 a month.  As of November 13, there were 247 fires, burning nearly 700 acres of land.  For October, the average number of fires is 15 and there were 206.

 

As of last Tuesday, the state was tracking 15 fires across the state with four of them in western Massachusetts. In addition to the Montgomery fire, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) said fires were still burning in Northampton, Monson, and Northfield.

According to the DCR, almost all fire activity is human-caused, although drought conditions increase the risk. Some of the fires have been traced back to abandoned campfires that were not entirely put out.

This current drought harkens back memories of the fall of 1963 when the northeast was suffering a serious drought and Massachusetts was forced to shut down the woods to hunting.

 

I was home on furlough from the Air Force that fall and coincidentally my high school buddy Ken who was in the US Navy Reserves was also home on furlough.  We decided to do some small game hunting.  We didn’t have hunting licenses, but we had heard that people on active duty in the service during war time didn’t need to have one.  There was a war cranking up in some place called Viet Nam, so we figured it applied to us.

 

My father let me use his prized shotgun, something that he never did before.  Hey, his son was going off to war and he may never see him again.  Incidentally, he was offered $500 for it by the owner of Hyatt’s Hardware Store in Lee in 1950.  (About $6,500 today)

 

Just hours before we went hunting, we heard that the woods had been closed to hunting because of the drought.  Shame on us, we went anyways.  We decided to hunt the east side of the Housatonic River upstream from Woods Pond in Lenox, a place that was wet and swampy along a dirt road now called Roaring Brook Road.

 

We stopped at a good spot to hunt and started to go into the woods.  Knowing about the woods closures, I told Ken that if he saw me” take off like a deer”, there was a game warden nearby.  Don’t worry about me, I said, I’ll make it home.  At that time, we both had just completed basic training and were in tip top shape.

 

As I was loading my father’s shotgun and entering the woods, Ken said, “Well, you better start running.”  We frequently played jokes on one another back then, so I didn’t bother to look around.  Not until I heard a vehicle drive up, stop and two car doors slam.   When I looked back, there stood two game wardens. One was Officer Gordon Leeman and I don’t recall the name of the other officer.

 

They confiscated our guns and issued us citations to show up in the Lee District Court the next morning.

 

Ooh, this was not good, they confiscated my father’s prized shotgun!  Did I mention that he had once been a deputy game warden in the 1920’s (serving under Officer Bill Sargood, the person who “Old Bill” the famous moose on October Mountain was named after?)  I’ll never forget that evening when I told him what happened.  In a not too soft tone, I heard those words again, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse!”  I’m sure our neighbors and most of Lenox heard them that evening, too.

 

Later on, after his voice recovered, he called the judge about the matter.  Apparently, the judge owed my father a favor of some sorts.  He told my father to tell us to show up in court in our uniforms.

 

The next morning, my father, Ken and I were parked in front of the Lee Courthouse waiting for it to open.  Parked next to us were the game wardens.  When we got out of our cars and Officer Leeman saw me in my Air Force and Ken in his Navy uniforms, he groaned “Oh, bleep! The judge basically slapped us on the wrist, issued no fine and told us to go and stay out of further trouble.  My father got his gun back, too.

 

I had one more hurdle to overcome.  At the time, I was stationed at an outpost at Syracuse University and enrolled in its East European Language Program, specializing in Russian.  By the way, a program for which I did not volunteer. Because a top secret- codeword clearance was required to be in that program, agents had previously come to Lenox to interview 10 local people to vouch for me that I was in good standing, never got into trouble, wasn’t a communist, etc.  People like my priest, school principal, chief of police, selectmen and others.

 

When I got back to the post from furlough, I had to report to the post commander and explain what happened.

 

Fortunately, the commanding officer, a major, was from the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.  While questioning me about the incident, he asked where I was from.   I told him that I was from the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, just south of the Green Mountains of Vt and a little east of the Adirondacks and Catskill Mountains of NY, and nowhere near Boston.  He didn’t demote me, make me become a cook, or anything.  Instead, he let me stay in the program.

 

Jump forward 20 years and I had just joined the Taconic Chapter of Trout Unlimited.  Who do you suppose was one of its members who sat next to me?   Officer Gordon Leeman whom I hadn’t seen since the incident.  We became good friends over the years and traveled together to veteran’s events, our weekly ROMEO (Retired old men eating out) lunches, and other TU functions before his passing in 2013.

 

Neither of us ever raised the subject of our first encounter.