By Jessica Bravo
The Hour, Norwalk
HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut officials said they are assisting with five brush fires across the state and are still monitoring more than 100 that have been controlled.
The brush fires actively being worked on as of Sunday night were in Berlin, Bristol, East Lyme, Oxford and Roxbury, according to Richard Schenk, who is a fire control officer for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. He said he believed firefighters and other professionals could be responding to existing and new fires into January.
The National Weather Service said the state continued to be at an elevated risk of brush fires on Monday, and recommended people to not burn anything outdoors.
Schenk said 111 brush fires are being monitored or in the “mopping-up” phase. He said rain was needed and new fires would likely ignite if the weather pattern did not change.
State officials have said Connecticut is facing a record drought Meteorologists said last week the state was facing an 8-inch rain deficit over the past six weeks.
On Saturday, a large brush fire broke out at Rocky Neck State Park in East Lyme, according to Schenk. He said the fire grew to around 46 acres and described it as burning extremely hot around the edges.
East Lyme officials said Rocky Neck will remain closed and Schenk said they would be working on the fire in the coming days.
Firefighters and DEEP personnel also continue to fight Berlin’s fire, the largest in the state, on Lamentation Mountain, Berlin Fire Chief Jonn Massirio said. Massirio said he hoped the fire, which has been called the Hawthorne Fire and started two weeks ago, could be moved to the mop-up phase in the coming days.
“We still have to be vigilant,” Massirio said. “Across the state, conditions still persist to be dry.”
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