Neighbors could see the smoke for miles as a brush fire burned for most of the day Monday in Gloucester.
“I smelled it first, and I thought maybe there was somebody burning brush in the neighborhood, and I looked up and said that’s not a barbeque,” said Deanie French, who lives nearby.
“With the dry conditions, it makes me nervous to see Hamilton, Salem, Essex,” said Mattie Berryman, a neighbor.
There was a huge response from surrounding fire departments as crews worked to get it under control, but it wasn’t easy.
“The fire gets into the ground, literally with the root bases being dried out and the peat and all the granite that we have,” said Fire Chief Eric Smith. “Fire literally gets underground and can pop up where you don’t expect it.”