Tisbury firefighters quickly contained a fully involved garage fire in the West Spring street neighborhood Tuesday night. No one was injured and two dogs were safe.
Prompt action and unexcelled presence of mind on the part of Frank Bodfish and Capt. Hartson Bodfish averted what might have been a serious fire in the Barnacle Club at Vineyard Haven yesterday forenoon. Very few members frequent the club during the morning hours and it was by the merest chance that Frank Bodfish entered the room about 10:30 and found it filled with a dense, suffocating smoke.
Recent catastrophic wildfires in California have sown concern on Martha’s Vineyard, where there is concern the 5,000-acre Manuel F. Correllus State Forest is becoming a tinder box.
The forest fire which races across the large section of the island known as “The Plains” lasted two days and burned through to West Tisbury. More than 200 men had a hard fight before the flames were subdued.
Two and a half hours from the start the fire reached Pine farm, owned by Ariel B. Scott, where the flames claimed a barn, destroyed a corn crib, hen houses and a building in which were two incubators, wagon and tools and a flock of hens.
Last Sunday, at about ten o’clock, with a high wind blowing from the westward, afterwards more southerly, a fire started in Quampacha Bottom, on Dr. Fisher’s Road, so called, and about one mile in from the highway leading to West Tisbury, and soon gathering headway begun a career of galloping destruction through the Bottom lands for some three miles, coming out on the Vineyard Haven road at various points between the Jeremiah Weeks farm, now owned by David S. Beetle, and a point to the north of Wilbur’s corner.
Edgartown firefighters were called out to the Newes pub Monday night for what turned out to be a small fire outside the downtown restaurant. No one was hurt.
A 24-foot powerboat caught fire in the Oak Bluffs harbor just off East Chop Drive early Tuesday, unleashing large plumes of smoke and an array of sirens.
A spectacular blaze, the cause of which is not definitely determined, destroyed the freight she and outer end of the Oak Bluffs steamboat wharf late Wednesday afternoon, involving a loss of property owned by Vincent’s Fish Market, on the dock property, the value of which was set at $30,000 and a loss to the Steamship Authority, covered by insurance, not yet even approximated. The fish market equipment was uninsured, according to David Vincent, the proprietor.
