Andover, MA All Hands Brush Fire - IAO Lowell Junction Rd @ the railroad crossing - 4/21/14

In the early afternoon, Andover Fire was alerted to a possible brush fire on Lowell Junction Rd near the railroad crossing just west of Connector Rd. Engine 2, F1 (Forestry Unit) and C2 were dispatched.

Engine 2 arrived on scene to find a large brush fire on both sides of the railroad tracks at the location given. Due to the large amount of fire, which was started by a passing MBTA work train, and the difficult access to some points of the near 3/4 mile fire scene, Engine 1 was requested to the scene. On their arrival, they set up in the rear of 19 Connector Rd, a large multi story brick commercial structure. The fire began to spread rapidly down the dried brush on the sides of the tracks towards additional commercial structures including the large distributuion facility for Market Basket Supermarket.

To add to the incident, one of the train cars from the 5 car train in question, which was carrying cut railroad ties from an ongoing rail project, had become involved in fire.

With manpower stretched thin, a request was put in for additional help to the scene. That request brought in Wilmington's Squad 1 and their brush unit. Once on scene, Squad 1 went right into a deck gun operation, knocking down fire on the eastern side of the tracks.

As units operated on the tracks, all rail traffic, which is heavily travelled in that stretch by the MBTA, Amtrak and frieght, had been shut down for firefighting operations. After having knocked down enough fire, crews were able to move the train and its burning contents to a spur beside the main line tracks. Once moved, Wilmingtons Squad opened their deck gun onto the involved train car to knock the fire down. Shortly there after, the AFD Deputy advised that rail traffic would be allowed thru the scene, albeit cautiously while firefighting operations continued.

In all, about a half dozen fires burned alongside the tracks and thru large areas of brush which took firefighters several hours to bring under control and wet down.While units were tied up at this fire, an addtional larger brush fire, unrelated to this fire, was reported on Regency Ridge on Andover's South side. The remaining AFD companies operated with help from a brush unit from North Reading.

At the same time, a smaller fire was reported by a resident on Somerset Dr. Lawrence Engine 7 was dispatched and found a small area of brush burning. Their crew was tied up for about 20 minutes putting the fire out and wetting down the area.

With so many units tied up working around the town, Andover C1 requested a 2nd alarm assignment to get some much needed coverage and manpower into town. Once cleared, Lawrence reported to Station 3 on the West Side, a North Reading Engine to the Ballardvale Station and a North Andover Engine to Headquarters for coverage.