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Harpswell firefighters are crediting a veteran small-plane pilot with helping them track down and fight a woodland fire that smoldered for hours late on Halloween and into the next day above Gun Point Cove.
“We’d been driving around quite a bit looking for the fire after receiving reports of smoke, so it’s nice that somebody was able to zero us in,” said Sean Hall, a town staff firefighter and assistant chief of the Orr’s and Bailey Islands Fire Department.
The eyes in the sky came from Scott White, an experienced pilot and instructor who was flying his Cessna 140 from Waterville back to his home base at the Brunswick Executive Airport as the sun was about to set on Saturday afternoon.
“When I got over Augusta, I could see the smoke,” White said in an interview with the Anchor. “I could tell right away that it was not a structure fire; they’re usually blacker smoke and different columns of smoke.”
When he flew over the fire site on Seal Ledge Lane, he was surprised not to see any fire crews working to contain the slowly growing burn below.
“When I got down over it, it was about an acre and I didn’t see anybody there,” White said. “I thought, this isn’t getting any smaller and they should get on it.”
Using the Bluetooth connection on his cockpit headset, White dialed 911. His timing was opportune; fire crews had been searching without success that afternoon after receiving reports of smoke from hikers at the Devil’s Back Trail Area.
On the ground, the first responders’ view was hampered by the fire’s nature and location. It was tucked away behind a ridge, burning mostly under a bed of dried vegetation and emerging only in patches of smoke, small flames and the occasional torching tree. From the air, though, White had a clear view.
“The sunset helped,” he said. “As the sun was going out, I could pick up the individual fires on the perimeter of the burn area.”
On the line with a 911 dispatcher, White could see fire trucks on nearby roads searching for the blaze and was able to provide detailed directions. Arriving on scene, the municipal and volunteer crews unrolled their hoses, laced them through the woods and began the hours-long process of tamping down the fire.
White is no stranger to fire-spotting. A pilot since 1984, he has flown numerous sorties while working for a firm hired by the state. The airplanes took the place of a dwindling number of staffed fire towers to help identify fires before they raged out of control, he explained.
White, 67, said he has also made numerous flights looking for missing boats and drifting docks. Adding the Halloween fire to the list felt good, he said. “It’s really nice to be able to do something so positive for the community with my airplane.”
