By Eric Francis, Standard Correspondent
PLYMOUTH – Firefighters from a dozen towns backed off of a sheer mountainside as darkness fell Monday evening and began to set up a fire watch around homes in the Hawk Mountain Resort area off Route 100 that were being threatened by a swift moving forest fire.
The blaze began when it jumped from a brush pile at a residence on Route 100 near Pingree Flats and began to climb the steep western slopes of what is actually Soltudus Mountain, a 2,120-foot peak that is best known for the Hawk Mountain Resort development on its southern face.
Plymouth’s volunteer firefighters were called out around 5 p.m. and, over the next couple of hours as the fire raced in what looked like orange rivulets up nearly 700 feet to the top of the ridge overlooking the Black River, more and more towns worth of manpower, forestry trucks and water tanker trucks were added to the effort.
In addition to the fire crews working up from Route 100 where the fire began, another large contingent came in from the opposite side of the ridge through an access off Snowy Owl Lane near the top of Hawk Mountain Resort.
Ludlow, Cavendish, Proctorsville, Shrewsbury, Clarendon, Bridgewater, Reading and West Weathersfield were among the towns contributing mutual aid resources to the forest fire.
Read more in this week’s print or e-edition coming out on Thursday, May 17.