A total of 26 grass fires were started accidentally along Interstate 95 between Carmel and Sherman last week by burning debris that fell from a northbound flatbed truck, a Maine Forest Service ranger said Tuesday.
On Monday, Forest Rangers Joe Mints and Kevin Somers and forensic specialist Stephen Wipperman finished mapping the fires, which burned up to 1½ acres each, Mints said.
No criminal charges will result from the July 10 accident.
“We did find excellent evidence in many of those locations that all pointed right back to that truck,” Mints said Tuesday. “Subsequent interviews with the original seller of farm equipment and the driver of the truck all corroborate the story that it was an unfortunate accident.”
A case like this, Mints has said, could have resulted in charges ranging from felony arson, if investigators had found evidence of intentional destruction, to a summons for improper disposal of ignited materials, which carries fines and reimbursement for damage and firefighter costs.
Rangers initially suspected that as many as 30 fires along the highway and in the median might have been started by the truck, which was carrying farming equipment and a hopper from Carmel to Aroostook County. There were 26 fires. No one was injured.
Burning bits of plywood, solder and other debris found along the road came from a bin that had been cut down with a blowtorch to fit under highway overpasses on the back of a flatbed tractor-trailer truck, Mints said. Solder from the job ignited the debris.
The driver and passenger were not charged because they apparently could not see or didn’t know that the debris was burning or had escaped the truck, Mints said.
The hot, dry and windy conditions last week were a big factor in the fires, Mints said.
LOL. And they were worried about fireworks.
no charges! but yet the mdot maffia wagons will nail you with a fine if a piece of bark or a small stone falls off your trailer and you get hit with an unsecure load fine….what is the difference?
Gotta be because the Warden’s got there before the weigh wagons. It was there case, had the Mafia in Blue gotten there first there would be a million tickets on top of arson charges.
Obviously related to somebody ………..
MDOT does not enforce unsecure loads… The Maine State Police do…. there is a difference..
The fires just save MDOT $$$ in mowing
Should at the very least be made to pay for all the manpower and equipment to put the fires out.
I agree. Why should local towns have to pay for this? There is no doubt that it was an accident but local taxpayers should not be forced to pay for putting out these fires.
That is what insurance is for.
“Solder from the job ignited the debris.”
Impossible. Any molton solder flying that far through the air wold not have been hot enough to start a fire. Even slag from torching would not be hot enough by then. Smoldering pieces of plywood would be the culprit. (I know, nitpicking)
Definitely not “solder”. Solder is a soft alloy used to join metals (usually in plumbing or electronics). Probably slag, mixed in with wood chips or other material that would both insulate it and smolder.
And it does seem very lenient to not make any charges when so many minor infringements are prosecuted against truckers today. If the entire load had fallen off and flattened a car full or kids, would that also be just an unfortunate accident? How about if one of these fires had burned down a house with someone in it? Littering, anyone?
Really heads up driving.