A fire on Washington Island late Sunday night has required the entire county to respond, with some departments still on the island tending to hot spots as of mid-Monday morning. After 9 p.m. on Sunday, the Washington Island Fire Department was paged to the intersection of Range Line Road and Jackson Harbor Road, where an area between 10 and 20 acres was burning. Before 9:30 a.m., the department activated the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System to the second alarm level, which calls in resources from the entire county. Spread across two separate trips from the mainland to the island, 60 firefighters helped load ten brush trucks, two tenders, two command vehicles, three man-powered squads, and eight UTVs onto the Washington Island Ferry to assist in the efforts. With all the activity occurring in the dead of night, Justin MacDonald, the Fire Chief for Egg Harbor and Ephraim Fire Department and the incident's public information officer, said responding could be dangerous.
As of 9:30 a.m., MacDonald said the fire was under control, but members of some of the fire departments from northern Door County stayed on the island to tend to hot spots over the next several hours. Members from fire departments in the southern half of the county were able to head back to the mainland at 3 a.m. MacDonald added that the blaze showed how dry Door County is and why a burn ban is still in effect.
The fire remains under investigation.
