ASHFIELD — No one was injured on Saturday evening after 150 bales of hay on a trailer caught fire on Cape Street (Route 112), which the fire chief advises was likely caused by sparks created by a piece of metal that had been dragging on the roadway.
Ashfield Fire Chief Kyle Walker said the emergency call came in shortly after 6 p.m. He and most of his personnel were at Ashfield Lake for the town’s lighted boat parade, but he sent an apparatus with some crew members to battle the fire in the area of Sanderson Academy.
Walker explained a man was towing hay bales on a 22-foot landscaping trailer behind a pickup truck when he saw “what he thought was smoke or steam … and he got out to investigate.” Walker said the man unhitched the truck from the trailer and pulled forward to create distance from the flames. He said the driver, who is not from Ashfield, handled the situation well.
Walker mentioned that the blaze required 18,000 gallons of water, which came from tanker trucks and Main Street hydrants, to extinguish. He said the fire was extinguished by 8 p.m., though the road was closed until after 10 p.m. for cleanup, debris removal and equipment decontamination.
The chief said Ashfield received mutual aid from the fire departments of Goshen, Williamsburg, Cummington, Conway, Shelburne Falls, Buckland, Hawley and Deerfield. He said at least 30 firefighters were present at the height of the incident.
