Montville — Firefighters spent several hours Sunday afternoon battling a brush fire in a forested area near Barnes Reservoir. The fire was put out by Sunday evening. 

Oakdale Chief Gary Murphy said that around 2:05 p.m. the department began receiving calls about smoke in the area near the intersection of Chapel Hill and Black Ash roads.

The area was about a mile into the woods, Murphy said, and accessible only by all-terrain vehicle. It took firefighters about forty minutes to bring equipment into the area after recieving the call. By that time, the fire had grown to "a couple acres." 

"Luckily their neighbor here had a backhoe (and) was able to open some areas way down in the back for us to get the ATVs in there," he said.

The fire traveled up a hill, Murphy said, and was naturally contained at the bottom despite the dry and windy conditions, giving firefighters time to put it out.

"We're using foam to foam the area and physically rake everything in because it's burned and so dry underneath," he said.

While it wasn't immediately clear what the cause of the fire was, Murphy said someone must have been responsible.

"If it was in the middle of summer, there's a lot of different factors, but being this time of the year, someone had to have set it," Murphy said. He said there was no evidence of a campfire on Sunday, but there was evidence of an earlier campfire in the area.

Departments responding to the fire included the Montville Fire Department, Mohegan Fire Company, brush trucks from Chesterfield Fire Company, Gardiner Lakes Volunteer Fire Company and all-terrain vehicles from the Mystic Fire Department.

n.lynch@theday.com

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