More than a week after fighting Cranston’s biggest brush fire this season, Cranston Fire Chief Robert Ryan says that following an unusually dry season, he is looking at adding a brush truck to the department.

This season, the Northeast has been experiencing a drought. The lack of precipitation has left brush in the area dry and vulnerable to fire.

“Well, I mean, a lot of it’s got to do with the weather pattern, global warming,” Ryan said. “You know, we haven’t had rain in almost two months, and the brush gets very dry out there.”

With an eye to the future, the chief is looking to get a brush truck to deal with the wooded areas in Western Cranston and along the highways.

Patrick MacMeekin is the wildland fire supervisor at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. Last week he said there has absolutely been a rise in brush fires this fall, noting that the wildfire season in the Northeast is typically spring.

The spring brings in low humidities and high winds, along with strong sunlight penetration through the forest canopy drying the leaves on the ground.

MacMeekin says those same conditions were not only in effect this fall but amplified because of the lack of rainfall.

“What’s more notable this fall is the lack of rain means that we were having many, many more fires than we typically would have,” he said. “So what happens … as we get more and more into drought, what the fire does is it tends to burn down underground.”

This means organic matter under the soil catches fire and smolders like a cigar. Firefighters end up spending a lot of time digging heat out of the ground and using hoses, foam and other means to try to extinguish the embers, MacMeekin explained.

MacMeekin said 2024 has been average for brush fires overall, with most of them happening in the last month.

“We had about 30 or so fires in the spring,” he said, “and we had about 35 to 40 fires just in the last month. So that’s pretty unusual to have that many fires in such a short time frame.”

At 10 p.m. last Monday, the city’s Fire Department responded to a fire of more than two acres off I-295 at Niantic Ave. To handle the intense blaze, the department called in help from other towns.

With six tankers, a brush truck and a tanker task force dispatched, firefighters were able to put the fire out.

“Not everybody has a brush truck,” Chief Ryan said. “A lot of the towns, Exeter, Foster and Scituate, they all have brush trucks because they have quite a bit of land. But here in the city, we don’t, but we do have to access the highway. There still is an awful lot of land and woods along the highways. And it does take a lot of manpower.”

A brush truck is different from a conventional ladder or engine. The brush truck is specialized, designed to handle off-road conditions and fight wildfires in forests and other wildlands.

The cost of a decent brush truck with all-wheel drive is around $200,000, Ryan said.

MacMeekin supports the idea of more brush trucks being available to fire departments.

“The advantage to a brush truck is that it’s essentially like a large pickup truck chassis that has water in the back, sometimes a little bit bigger,” MacMeekin explained. “But the advantage is that that truck can often fit into much tighter spaces. So that’s why I would be a proponent of more brush trucks.”

Johnston also sees rise in brush fires

Johnston Fire Chief David Iannuccilli, a 37-year career firefighter, said he has seen a dramatic increase in brush fires in town and in surrounding communities.

Lannuccilli said that last month in Johnston alone, they’ve had about 10 brush fires, an unusually high number.

“The drought we’ve had, along with the wind conditions, have created a little problem for us,” Iannuccilli said. “As far as the brush fires, we’ve had numerous brush fires in our town, [and] our surrounding communities, have had numerous brush fires.”

Cranston and Johnston have put out red-flag alerts, urging residents to refrain from using fire pits, open burning and irresponsibly discarding cigarette butts.

Iannuccilli also said hot exhaust systems on dirt bikes being ridden through the woods can contribute to the rise in brush fires.

Ryan said that Cranston has been doing well overall, having to deal only with small mulch and brush fires as most residents continue to heed the red flag alerts.

Last weekend offered some much-needed relief with rainfall on Thursday and Friday, but MacMeekin advises residents to remain vigilant, explaining that more heavy rain is needed.

“We are still at a deficit of how much rain we should have,” he said. “So, I would just caution folks that just because we had two days of rain doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet. Still be vigilant.”

When asked if this could be the new normal for Rhode Islanders, MacMeekin said, “Yes and no – it is the new normal.”

“I think what we’re going to see more of is these periods where we get prolonged drought or, on the flip side, we get prolonged rainfall,” he said. “So, we’ll see more extremes.”

This story has been revised to correct an error; an earlier version misspelled Johnston Fire Chief David Iannuccilli’s name.