Drought Limiting Water Options For Freetown Firefighters

The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs issued a Drought Warning for Southeastern Massachusetts on Friday as the region continues to deal with warm temperatures and below average rainfall.

The ongoing drought conditions have created problems for fire departments including Freetown with Fire Chief Gary Silvia telling WBSM News that their access to local water supplies has been limited.

"Alot of our watering holes that we normally use to draft water to fight fires are now dried up," said Silvia "and we have now only throughout the town, but throughout the State Forest, because we cover the State Forest also, there's no water in the holes at all now they're totally dry."

Silvia says this has caused the department to resort to other measures.

"We have to call our neighbors for tankers to bring the water in on wheels," said Silvia.

In addition Silivia says the fire department has been warning residents to be careful when it comes barbecuing outdoors and disposing cigarettes over brush fire concerns, something which has become a growing problem.

"We've had a little uptick in calls for mulch fires, small ones around the outside of businesses, they take a little time to extinguish because it's so dry, you have to get the water deep down to actually get the fire out," said Silvia "and also you see alot of times on the highways burned out areas where somebody discarded a cigarette and the grass caught fire."

While there has been some recent rainfall lately, Silvia says it hasn't been enough to offset any impacts from the drought.