The historically large East Mountain Fire is approaching full containment in Northern Berkshire County, but it meant a tense weekend for locals on the fringes of the fire.
It’s taken days of hard work, dozens of agencies, scores of firefighters and almost a thousand acres of burned land for the East Mountain Fire to approach containment. While no structures have been impacted by the flames, area residents like Stephen Murray were faced with daunting choices as the fire expanded from Williamstown east over the weekend.
“Our house is sort of right on the border between North Adams and Williamstown along Massachusetts Avenue," said Murray. "It's a parallel road to route two, which goes East-West, and lies right at the base of the Pine Cobble Mountain, which everybody is familiar with who lives around here. It's a really popular hiking spot. And you can actually walk right out my backyard and head right up to the top of mountain from there.”
As a Lieutenant Paramedic at Northern Berkshire EMS, Murray was sleeping off a 16-hour shift on Sunday when the situation came to a head as the fire made its way over the peak of Pine Cobble Mountain.
“Apparently in the afternoon, the fire had made its way up at over the peak and was threatening houses along Massachusetts Avenue," he told WAMC. "I went down to the staging scene, and I was able to chat with some of the officials from the fire department there, who were able to give me an update as to what the real current threat was. The majority of the fire was off to our east. But we actually are directly one mile below the summit of Pine Cobble, which, you see in the pictures was fully engulfed in flames. And a mile feels like a long way when you're walking up the hill. But as we know, with forest fires, that with a good wind blowing, that that distance can be closed quite quickly. So we had to very quickly jump into action and start to make plans for our family and for our farm.”
Stephen and his wife have four kids, with a fifth on the way – to say nothing of their cats and the 100 animals on their four-acre property. Go-bags packed, the family reached out to the Northern Berkshire Community for support.
“We put out a thing on Facebook," explained Murray. "Our community is amazing and quickly responded. And we had at least six pickup trucks lined up, two trailers, and a whole bunch of hands that were ready to help us if we had to make a quick move. On top of that, we also found homes for, temporary homes for all of our different animals with other people in the community. So we were ready if the fire was going to move any more than it did.”
Murray, 33, took a direct approach to acclimating his kids to the dangerous situation.
“They were a bit nervous, so I thought the best way to get rid of their nervousness was to help them to feel prepared and understand that we had a plan," he said. "And then we took them up Luce Road around 8:30, 9 o'clock on Sunday night to get an actual view of the fire. And one of the good things is that when we were looking at the fire, you could see that the fire kind of wasn't moving anywhere at night. It was, it had kind of died down quite a bit. And so the kids felt comfortable going to bed on their own bed Sunday night.”
The area is no stranger to fires, with hundreds of acres of brush going up in flame back in 2015.
“I knew that we were at risk for fire, because every time I go hiking in the woods, I find old burnt out trees from fires past," said Murray. "And talking with people who've lived here longer, they said, Oh, yeah, we were directly fighting fire in your woods in the past before. So I was aware that that was a risk.”
Looking forward, Murray says he’s considering building a strip of grass in the woods around his house and farm to serve as a buffer, as well as building a system to collect rainwater to have on hand for the next fire. He says his family won’t forget the East Mountain Fire, the latest chapter in a challenging year.
“We’ve had a hell of a year of dealing with high stress, like everybody else with the pandemic, working in the pandemic," he told WAMC. "Family was impacted by COVID, back in December around Christmas. And so, you know, if anything, this year has made us and the kids more resilient.”
