AUGUSTA — Fires around central Maine on Friday kept fire departments busy from afternoon into the evening.
At about 1:45 p.m., the Augusta Fire Department responded to a report of a fire in a multi-unit building at 40 Mount Vernon Ave.
On Saturday, Battalion Chief Scott Dunbar said the small fire, in one room in one of the apartments, was extinguished quickly; most of the units that responded were released from the scene within about a half-hour.
Not long after, at 1:56 p.m., the Richmond Fire Department responded to a report of a brush fire between Meadow Way and Overlook Road in the center of town, off Langdon Road.
A brush fire in Richmond Friday burned about 2 1/2 acres and drew crews from three counties to knock it down. Richmond Fire Department
Reed Gilbert, assistant fire chief, said the Maine Forest Service is investigating the cause of the fire, which burned about 2 1/2 acres of field and woods.
“The wind was a large factor with that,” Gilbert said. “It just kind of pushed everything pretty quickly.”
Fire crews from Richmond, Bowdoinham, Dresden, Gardiner, Litchfield, Pittston, West Bath, Woolwich and the Maine Forest Service were on the scene for about three hours, he said.
“The top layer of the ground is pretty dry,” he said. “When you get a couple of inches deeper, it is a little muddy. But all the leaves and brush on top are pretty dry.”
With the windy, dry conditions, he said, burn permits have been shut off.
Shortly before 7 p.m., the Belgrade Fire & Rescue Association was called out to a report of a vehicle fire on Dunn Road, which connects West and Wings Mills roads east of Long Pond.
According to the department’s Facebook page, shortly afterward the fire had spread to a garage that was just a few feet away from the burning vehicle on the property, prompting a call for mutual aid.
Crews were able to stop the fire at the garage wall and roof structure and keep it from spreading to the attached house.
In addition to Belgrade, crews from Delta Ambulance, the Lakes Region Mutual Aid group, Oakland, Rome, Sidney and Smithfield responded to the scene.
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