While the exact cause of a forest fire that threatened several cottages on Sheep Island last month remains unknown, fire officials say it likely had some help from a “human element.”

Once crews had the fire extinguished, John Bott, spokesman for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, said the fire was found to be “suspicious in nature.”

Wednesday, he said the case remains open and the fire “likely involved a human element.”

“We have no information that it was intentionally set,” he added. “At this point the exact cause is undetermined and will remain undetermined absent new evidence and/or witnesses.”

Cundy’s Harbor Fire Chief Ben Wallace Jr. said the fire started in a pile of trees knocked down from past storms, which made it difficult to move through the burning debris and required chain saws. He estimated upward of 65 people on the ground helped battle the blaze. Equipment and manpower could only get to the island via boat.

Maine Forest Service aided as well by dumping several thousand gallons of water from the air. One of the department’s helicopters dropped 60 buckets of water from a nearby freshwater pond during the initial attack on the fire June 24 — a total of more than 14,000 gallons. A smaller helicopter did reconnaissance work from the air on conjunction with firefighting efforts.

Wallace said there are nine structures on the island and all but one were at some level of danger from the fire. The wind was blowing the fire toward the northwest and north sides of the island where most of the cottages are located. Firefighters and rangers kept the fire from reaching them, containing the fire to a 3- to 4-acre area.

Kent Nelson, Forest Ranger Specialist and Excess Property Manager with the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, often works on fire prevention with coastal islands. The department reminds residents it will be between 45 minutes and an hour usually before firefighters can get to them if a fire breaks out.

“We try to tell homeowners to create defensible space around their structures,” he said. They should clear the brush as a precaution before it reaches the dry conditions Maine has experienced this summer.

Even if the fire is on the opposite side of the island, if the wind is blowing embers at you, all it takes is a spark to catch homes and structures on fire, Nelson said. In some cases, if homeowners do this work to clear the brush, “your house could survive a wildfire without anyone being there, and yet you can do it in such a way that you’re not living in a concrete parking lot.”

The Maine Forest Service has advice for homeowners on how they can be smart and manage their vegetation, he said.

dmoore@timesrecord.com

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