LYNDON, N.Y. — It's that time of year when temperatures are slowly heating up, but trees and plants haven't really started to get their leaves for the summer, leaving the environment more at risk for brush fires.
On Wednesday 2 On Your Side visited Cattaraugus County, where a recent fire ended up spreading and prompted nearly a dozen different fire companies to respond.
"The skies are sunny, the wind is brisk, and the grass is extremely dry. Perfect conditions for a brush fire, and when one gets going in these conditions, it gets going right quick," Chief Russ Ward, the Lyndon Fire Department, told 2 On Your Side.
That also was the case along Abbott Road in the Town of Lyndon, where someone burning some cardboard touched off what would eventually be more than a 10-acre fire that spread from a cow pasture into some pine woods, setting trees and summoning 70 firefighters from 10 companies in two counties.
Adding to the difficulties, there are no hydrants out there. So pumpers had to fill from a pond more than a mile away, and hose lines had to be brought up with ATVs.
The property owner was ticketed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for violating the state's open burning ban, which remains in effect until mid-May.
"When that ban is lifted, at that time you have green overgrowth covering all this stuff and your odds of having a brush fire are much less," Ward said.
It also takes some special tools to fight brush fires.