AMHERST — Firefighters from Amherst, Hadley and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation responded to a brush fire in a remote meadow near Wildwood cemetery on Friday afternoon, while thousands of students and families readied for the University of Massachusetts Amherst commencement ceremony across town.
“The timing was a little unfortunate because the UMass commencement was going on at the same time,” said Assistant Fire Chief Lindsay Stromgren. “We had an extra crew down by commencement.”
The Amherst Fire Department received a report from the conservation department’s Pelham Fire Tower at 1:30 Friday of smoke coming from a remote, wooded area of town, according to Stromgren.
Because the location of the fire was set back from the road, crews could not reach the fire with a tanker truck, and had to use an all-terrain vehicle to access the site.
It took crews about five hours to completely subdue the flames, which were likely started by a campfire in the woods based on evidence at the scene, Stromgren said.
Between 2 and 3 acres of meadowland burned, but no property was damaged and nobody was injured.
Sarah Robertson can be reached at srobertson@gazettenet.com.