CALEB NICKERSON
CLARENDON July 28, 2019
Fire crews were called out to a field on the Fifth Line in Clarendon on Sunday afternoon after some hay that . . .
was being baled managed to ignite.
Shawville Clarendon Fire Chief Lee Laframboise said that 11 firefighters and four trucks responded to the blaze, which was called in at around 2:35 p.m.
“The guy was baling hay, and he doesn’t really know what happened but the hay started on fire,” he said. “With this heat, it’s so dry. There’s risk of fire with any equipment working… it doesn’t take much to make a spark.”
Laframboise estimated that roughly three to four acres were burnt, along with a half dozen round bales. It took the responders around three hours to extinguish the fire, and he explained that his crew had to constantly haul water with one of the tankers while the other battled the flames. He added that cleaning up hoses and equipment blackened with soot and dirt from a brush fire is an added challenge after tramping around in a hot field.
“It almost went to the bush, luckily the wind was going the other way,” Laframboise said. “It’s awful dirty and black, it makes quite a mess. It takes us a long [time] to clean up after a fire like that.”
