Springer fire mitigation

Fire crews near the Springer Fire near Lake George are working 16-hour days to save buildings from going up in smoke. Photojournalist Joe Yates and I went up to one of those mitigation sites. It was at Camp Alexander which is a Boy Scout camp that was evacuated on Sunday.

Task Force Leader Heath Morgan showed us one crew that was digging a trench near tents. It was a fire line behind this Scout tent community.

Morgan said, “That way if there’s logs or pine cones or sticks or rolling debris from the fire, this trench will catch that debris so it won’t keep rolling into the tent.”

Morgan also showed us efforts next to the camp’s main buildings. Those efforts included policing the area to make sure that there’s nothing combustible near or in the general vicinity of the structures.

Morgan talked about his team’s efforts.

“This is plan B here,” he said. “Plan A is all the crews on the fire trying to keep things contained there. If something was to go wrong there, then we’ll back off and protect the subdivisions and the structures here.”

These crews will be working 16 hour days as the Springer Fire continues.