Fire in Shelburne?

From the Friends of the Cohos Trail Facebook page this morning:

U.S. Forest Service - White Mountain National Forest
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White Mountain National Forest fire personnel along with mutual aid partners (State of NH, State of Maine, and local volunteer fire departments) are responding to the Centennial Fire located west of Leadmine State Forest. The fire was reported at 10 am Monday morning. It is estimated to be 25 acres in size. There is active fire behavior that includes backing in the hardwood litter and single tree torching in the softwood litter on the Eastern flank. It is burning in steep, mountainous terrain and has burned across a portion of the Appalachian Trail.
This incident has progressed outside of the USFS jurisdiction and is being managed under Unified Command. There are no major threats to life or property at this time. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
More information will be released as it becomes available.

MWOBS posted some photos last night.

video: https://www.wmur.com/article/shelburne-new-hampshire-centennial-brush-fire-510/39953942

An article from the Berlin Sun/Conway Daly Sun
https://www.conwaydailysun.com/berl...cle_16971550-cfc5-11ec-bcc5-07ab92a4e137.html

Note the hiker rescue tie in. It will be interesting if additional info comes out. The Centennial Trail and Mahoosuc trail is technically listed as camping at designated sites only (the nearest would be Trident Col). Nevertheless this is very popular area for bootleg campers. Many folks drive up and camp in the woods along this section of trail as Trident Col is a 3 or 4 hours past this point. It was quite cold Monday morning, right around 32F at my house in Gorham so expect it was below freezing. Thus this could have been a poorly extinguished camp fire but that would not explain the possible tie in to a hiker rescue.

The fire was still putting out smoke this morning. There is good chance the fire has gotten down into the rocky terrain in the woods.

BTW, this an odd part of the White Mountain National Forest. The declaration boundary of the forest normally was drawn up to logical boundaries like roads and drainages. In the Mahoosucs the boundary follows the AT swath with little or no actual "forest" This outlier also stops at the NH/ME line. Much of this land was owned by Brown Company all the way to Grafton Notch and some of the NH land was transferred to a subsequent owner, JR Dillon who made a bundle selling a 5 mile long section to the National Park Service.

Thank you for keeping us updated.

WMUR reported that the state has a person of interest and that the fire most likely started from a warming fire. The duff is deep in those woods and it can take a while to put a fire out for good. Rain would help but the soonest in the forecast is in three or four days. This could be an expensive spring hike for someone.

peakbagger said:

WMUR reported that the state has a person of interest and that the fire most likely started from a warming fire. The duff is deep in those woods and it can take a while to put a fire out for good. Rain would help but the soonest in the forecast is in three or four days. This could be an expensive spring hike for someone.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, as you seem more educated in forestry. But from my experience living out west and witnessing forest fires first hand. they are put out by rain, not by man. Man can hold them and contain them, but without rain or snow, they continue to burn.

I am not a forest fire trained person but my belief is the approach in NH is to try to put out small fires or at least contain them. The last large fire was down off of Passaconaway Road and previously in Kinsman Notch. In both cases they stayed on site for long duration trying to knock down the fire I have seen references that fire NF fire fighters refer to the Whites as the Asbestos National Forest as with the exception of a short duration in spring from the melt to leaf out the wood are just too green to sustain a major fire. Its likely with climate change and various invasive species attacks on vegetation (EAB on Ash, Wooly Adelgid on Hemlock and spongy caterpillar (formerly gypsy moth) on oaks, the woods my be less fire resistant. Maine does or did have some aerial capability left over from the budworm kills.

sierra said:

they are put out by rain, not by man. Man can hold them and contain them, but without rain or snow, they continue to burn.

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As a 20+ year FF, fires are generally put out by FFs in NH. The difference is scale. Out West a big fire is in 10-100k acres. Here a 48 acre fire is large.
Yes, helicopters are available and used in NH, although expensive, they are worth every penny in the right situation.

Don’t even fart let alone strike a match out there right now. https://www.conwaydailysun.com/news...lOoDTn4sN5Ll80OvJyN6BXO6Z_gHM-GpZ1YUk3fuSLBzE

Rainman said:

As a 20+ year FF, fires are generally put out by FFs in NH. The difference is scale. Out West a big fire is in 10-100k acres. Here a 48 acre fire is large.
Yes, helicopters are available and used in NH, although expensive, they are worth every penny in the right situation.

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Further east, https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20220511004. 3,100 hectares is almost 7,700 acres. Fire is now fully contained.

The news stated this morning that the Shelburne fire was fully under control but the AT through the area is closed indefinitely.