Published in the July 27, 2016 edition

By MAUREEN DOHERTY

LYNNFIELD — The current drought has made brush fires a real problem locally.

During the past week alone, the Lynnfield Fire Department responded to five brush fires out of 45 total calls made to the department from Sunday, July 17 through Saturday, July 23.

“It is an odd time of year to be experiencing as many brush fires as we have been having. Normally the wild land is green and lush, reducing the chance of fires occurring, and if they do, it prevents them from spreading,” Fire Chief Mark Tetreault told the Villager on Monday.

“With the current drought conditions, the wild land is very susceptible to fires, smoking materials, fireworks, lightning, arson, sparks from small gasoline engines, out-of-control fire pits and illegal burning, all of which can lead to wild land fires,” he said.

“Last week we had two significant brush fires, one on Chestnut Street that burned very deep and took several hours to control.  We continue to have spot fires ignite at this fire,” he added.

“We had another fire on Lynnbrook Road that was started by fireworks,” Tetreault said, adding, “and several homes in the area were threatened.”

LCWD emergency ban

To ensure that there is sufficient water available to fight fires as well as enough water for ordinary household and commercial use, the Lynnfield Center Water District (LCWD) has imposed an emergency ban limiting the use of outdoor water to hand-held hoses only.

This ban is mandatory and was imposed by the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on the 14 public water suppliers within the Ipswich River Basin.

The LCWD posted legal notices in the newspaper to inform the public of this emergency water ban and has posted large red and white signs in conspicuous locations throughout the district to inform the public of this ban.

The ban states, in part, that the LCWD “restricts outdoor water use to a hand held hose at any time; no sprinkler use allowed. As the district must impose this regulation, violators will be fined $50 for the first offense and $100 for subsequent offenses.”

Tetreault explained, “The water ban is enforced by the water districts. I know they have been active in fining people for watering. Some people in Lynnfield have private wells in addition to town water; these people can water from their well. The water districts can test the water to identify if it is coming from a well or if it is town water.”

Residents concerned about potential illegal outside watering during this ban should contact the LCWD, Tetreault added.

LWD not included in ban

The Lynnfield Water District (LWD) is not affected by the ban because its water is purchased from the MWRA, LWD Superintendent James Finegan told the Villager.

While the LWD “does not have any restrictions or limitations on water use due to the current drought conditions” Finegan added, “we do recommend wise use of our water.” The LWD serves the southern one-third of town. An easy way customers can determine which water district serves them is by the color of their fire hydrants, Finegan said. LWD hydrants are red; LCWD hydrants are green.

In addition to the five brush fires, the Fire Department responded to 28 emergency medical calls, three motor vehicle accidents, one unauthorized burning, four alarm activations and one call each for burned food, a lock-out and a vicinity alarm this past week.

The department has now surpassed 1,000 calls in 2016, as last week’s total pushed the year-to-date responses to 1,024.