Online petition asks Gov. Cuomo, County Exec Bellone to ‘clear the fire lanes’ in Flanders pine barrens

Flanders resident Susan Tocci has started an online petition at Change.org asking the state and county governments to address the overgrown fire lanes and dead trees on preserved public lands within the Flanders Fire District. See the petition here.

Residents are worried about the prospects of a major brush fire in the Flanders pine barrens, 11,000 acres of preserved pine barrens where there hasn’t been a major brush fire since the 1960s. Fire is a natural and regular occurrence for the pine barrens, known as a fire-dependent ecosystem.

If a major wildfire ignites and firefighters can’t penetrate the woods to fight it, the losses could be catastrophic, according to Flanders Fire Chief Joseph Petit. The lives of firefighters attempting to battle a wildfire under existing conditions would also be put at risk, he said.

Local volunteer firefighters are frustrated by the government’s failure to maintain the fire lanes in the Flanders pine barrens or remove the dead oak trees, both standing and fallen, pervasive throughout the government-owned preserved land since a massive die-off about a decade ago.

The woods are a hazard to residents and firefighters alike, they say, and they’re angered by the lack of response they’ve gotten from state and county officials, whom they say seem more interested in preserving wildlife habitat than protecting human life and the hundreds of homes bordering the pine barrens.

Two brush trucks fighting a wildfire off Pleasure Drive in Flanders on April 11 got stuck on dead wood. One truck, a Flanders Fire Department brush truck, was pulled loose by another truck, but a Riverhead Fire Department truck became incapacitated due to a broken tie rod. Its crew was stranded in the woods. The truck had to be towed out of the woods and towed back to Riverhead headquarters. The drivers of both trucks, each with more than 25 years experience driving brush trucks, both said they’d never seen conditions so bad as they were that Saturday. Getting stuck in the burning woods is the worst case scenario for a firefighter.

“Now you’re stuck in the woods and you gotta hope you have a full tank of water when that happens, so you can protect yourself,” Riverhead brush truck driver Steve Beal said. “You hope you can put the fire out enough to protect yourselves.”

Local residents have also started a Facebook group to discuss the situation and rally support to press county and state officials into action.

An aide to Second District County Legislator Jay Schneiderman said today the legislator wrote to Suffolk Parks Commissioner Greg Dawson and Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services Commissioner Joseph Williams on Thursday after being told by a reporter about the trucks getting stuck during the April 11 brush fire.

“It has been brought to my attention that fire lanes on county-owned preserved lands in the Flanders pine barrens area are in serious need of clearing,” Schneiderman wrote to the county commissioners. “The fire lanes are apparently overgrown and blocked with fallen trees and stumps. Firefighters claim that they have been asking for help for several years. I learned that one brush truck was damaged when trying to cross over a dead tree while fighting a brush fire on county owned land in Flanders on April 11. The truck had to be towed out of the woods. Two other trucks were apparently also damaged by conditions in the same woods,” he wrote in the email, forwarded by his aide. Schneiderman sent them a link to a RiverheadLOCAL video, saying, “This video link clearly details the problem.”

The legislator asked that they advise him “what steps are being taken to remedy this situation.”

He has not had a response yet from either Dawson or Williams, Schneiderman’s aide, Christina DiLisi, said today.

Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter who, along with NYS DEC regional director Peter Scully, Southampton Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and Brookhaven Supervisor Edward Romaine sits on the state pine barrens commission, also said today he has had no reply from fellow commissioners to an email he sent them last week asking the commission to take action to clear the fire lanes.

The commission got additional state funding of $350,000 in state funding, Walter said. He would push to spend some of that on clearing the fire lanes, he said.