CALEB NICKERSON

SHAWVILLE June 23, 2019

A cigarette was the likely culprit behind a fire that damaged a fence in downtown Shawville on Sunday afternoon, according to Shawville-Clarendon Fire Chief Lee Laframboise.

At around 3:21 p.m. on June 23, emergency crews responded to the apartment at 329 James St. to extinguish a fire that had started among the mulch in the front garden and spread to the bottom of the fence.

Since it was originally called in as a building fire, 13 firefighters responded as is procedure, though only a handful were needed. Luckily, Laframboise said a bystander was already attacking the blaze with pails of water and the SCFD had it extinguished in short order.

“It looked like cigarettes had been thrown there and dry mulch starts on fire pretty easily,” he said.“We weren’t long handling it.