Tiverton and Little Compton Fire Departments Contain Saxony Avenue Brush Fire

A brush fire was contained around midday on Sunday in a small residential neighborhood in South Tiverton off Crandall Road. No injuries were reported.

and fire departments responded to 72 Saxony Road just after 12 p.m. where a brush fire started in one resident’s yard, according to Tiverton Lt. Bruce Reimels.

A cause for the fire had not yet been determined, and the fire was contained around 12:30 p.m. Crews stayed until about 2 p.m.

Tiverton Fire Chief Robert Lloyd was taking a chainsaw to a couple of small smoldering trees and branches in the wooded area.

Reimels said the fire spread and burned approximately 1.5 square acres of wooded land behind several properties. Hoses were run from Saxony Avenue and East Dion Avenue, which runs perpendicular to Saxony, in order to cut the fire off quicker.

He said they used approximately 7,000 gallons of water.

Resident Brian McGlynn, of 72 Saxony Ave., stared at his demolished and smoldering shed in his backyard, while Little Compton Fire Chief Richard Petrin continued to douse it with water. In the loss, McGlynn noticed his old lawn mower and landscaping tools in the rubble. He said he had not been in the shed in years.

“I heard nothing, except a little boom,” said McGlynn, guessing it could have been the collapse of his shed's roof. “I guess it was going for a little while.”

A few minutes later, fire crews noticed the carcass of an opossum underneath McGlynn’s shed.

“In about the 20 years I’ve been here, I’ve never had a fire,” said Allan Batista, McGlynn’s neighbor. My wife just called 911. She was going to take a hose to it.”

Batistia and McGlynn confirmed they first saw the fire pick up on some brush in a neighbor’s yard to the east of them, and said the wind blowing from the south carried it further into the woods.

Fire departments from Fall River, Westport and Portsmouth covered the fire stations of Tiverton and Little Compton.