Brush fires in Massachusetts have burned hundreds of acres, and air quality is a major concern. One of the biggest fires is in Salem, where Halloween preparations are in full swing.
Massachusetts remains subject to a brush fire warning, the Department of Fire Services said Tuesday, as hundreds of acres burn across the state and a smoky haze continues to hang over many local communities.
Within the past week, 126 separate brush fires have burned a total of 548 acres in Massachusetts, a DFS spokesperson told the State House News Service. That includes the fires that have scorched up to 133 acres in Salem and more than 200 acres in Middleton as of Tuesday morning.
On Monday night, with 47 active burns, DFS issued the brush fire warning which calls on Bay Staters to avoid outdoor cooking and heating; be careful with lawnmowers, leafblowers, and other equipment whose engines can become hot; extinguish cigarettes and other smoking materials in an ashtray with water or sand; and abide by an existing prohibition on open burning through January.
The same cautions remain in place Tuesday, DFS spokesperson Jake Wark told the News Service, as weather conditions have not changed significantly.
"We're still in dry, breezy weather which will encourage an outdoor fire, and unfortunately help it to spread -- often to dangerous sizes," Wark said.
The Salem and Middleton fires, together with other blazes in Wilmington and Canton, have resulted in activations of the statewide Fire Mobilization Plan, Wark said. All four fires have occurred between last Friday and Tuesday.
"It's a way of organizing firefighting resources and bringing them across the region," Wark said of the mobilization plan for larger fires, "so we have firefighters from, say, Lexington and Groton going to Salem, so that local and regional firefighters aren't overwhelmed. They can continue to handle the day-to-day fires in their communities."
Most of the state is either "abnormally dry" or in a state of moderate drought, according to the most recent maps released last week by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
