Sunapee crews assist Grantham in 2nd alarm brush fire

Fire crews from Sunapee moved into Grantham on May 18 and helped knock down a 2nd-alarm brush fire, sending Forestry 6, Tanker 4 and the Argo ATV as part of the mutual aid response. After arriving, Sunapee firefighters were assigned to the upper division of the fire and worked with neighboring departments to contain and fully extinguish the blaze.

The apparatus list tells the story of how brush-fire response works in the Upper Valley-Lake Sunapee region. Forestry units are built for wildland conditions, tankers carry water where hydrants may be limited or unavailable, and the Argo ATV can reach ground that larger rigs cannot. In a rural fire, those pieces matter as much as manpower. A 2nd-alarm call means the first wave of resources was not enough, and the Grantham incident drew on the kind of regional backup that keeps smaller towns from facing a spreading fire alone.

Sunapee’s own fire department page underscores that point. The department runs a 24/7 live dispatch feed and posts daily fire-danger information, which on the day of the page crawl showed MODERATE conditions with burn permits required. Its recent-calls listing is limited to larger incidents, a sign that the Grantham brush fire was significant enough to rise above the routine. Sunapee’s apparatus roster also lists Forestry 6, Tanker 4 and an Argo, matching the units it sent to Grantham.

The response also highlights the way Sullivan County departments depend on one another. Sunapee was not answering a fire inside its own borders, but helping another community protect land and property under a mutual aid agreement. Grantham’s fire department lists its station at 251 Route 10 South in Grantham and its non-emergency phone number as (603) 863-5710, part of the local system residents rely on before a fire becomes an emergency.

The broader fire picture was not reassuring. The National Interagency Fire Center reported on May 19 that 28 large fires were being suppressed nationwide, with 27,342 wildland fire incidents year to date and 2,190,710 acres burned. In that context, the Grantham brush fire served as a local warning: as spring dries out, even a small ignition can demand a multi-department response, and the region’s preparedness depends on crews that can move fast, share equipment and finish the job together.