The fire trucks were back in the garage on Sunday
WALKER VALLEY – The Mother’s Day pancake breakfast at the Walker Valley Firehouse usually attracts about 100 people. This year almost double that amount turned up.
The annual fundraiser was held one week after the wild fire began on
Ferguson Road by a person burning illegally during a statewide burn ban.
Fire spread mostly on state forestland and a small amount of private land
on the Sullivan County side of Summitville and then north into Ulster
County. The fire was fought initially by the Summitville and Bloomingburg
fire companies. Walker Valley joined with the Cragsmoor, Napanoch and
Ellenville companies. For a few days the Cragsmoor Post Office closed
but service was available in Ellenville.
John Riker, a department trustee, was one of the many volunteer firefighters
from just the Walker Valley district. He said he worked as much as he
could; he wanted to do more to protect homes and worked on cutting fire
lines up on Fire Tower Road.
Fire Chief Dan Greer estimated that 2,400 -3,000 acres of land were burned.
“All houses were protected… No personal property burned other than trees and land,” the chief said.
Greer explained that a wild fire is managed and contained with “back burning, raking, and cutting in lines with dozers, leaf blowers, and rakes. We don’t cut down trees unless we absolutely have to… we’re cutting them just to get rid of them so it doesn’t burn across them.”
The fire stayed north of Ferguson Road and did cross Fire Tower Road and burned up across the top of the ridge to Cox Road and toward Route 52. Greer estimates that “on this side (Walker Valley and Cragsmoor) 200 firemen and 30 pieces of apparatus protecting houses and keeping it from jumping Route 52.
The chief said that if the fire had jumped Route 52, it would not have “stopped until Minnewaska” State Park.
