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Small fire scorches Lake Placid field

LAKE PLACID – A few sparks from a grinder.

That’s all it took in the dry conditions the area has seen lately to ignite a grass fire Thursday next to TMax-n-Topo’s Hostel on Cascade Road, or state Route 73. The blaze scorched about half an acre of open field before it was extinguished.

David Gomlak, who owns the hostel with his wife, said he was outside grinding steel for a project when a couple of sparks lit a small patch of grass on fire.

“By the time I got water out here, it was about 30 or 40 seconds, the wind had whipped (the fire) up, and it took off,” he said. “There were some low level, 3- to-4-inch-high flames and a lot of smoldering, and one bush went up (in flames).”

Gomlak said his wife called 911 to report the blaze. A local resident, Dave Sheffield, saw the fire while driving by and stopped to help Gomlak try and put it out.

“Him and a friend and my wife grabbed a few rakes and tried to rake some of the stuff back in to try and prevent it from spreading,” he said. “I grabbed a couple hoses. I almost had it out but my last hose didn’t reach far enough, and it slowly took off.”

The Lake Placid Volunteer Fire Department was called to the scene at 11:59 a.m., responding with four trucks and 17 members. They were quickly joined by a pair of state forest rangers, along with manpower and a pumper truck from the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department.

Firefighters used rakes to break up the fire and doused it with hundreds of gallons of water drawn from pumper trucks before it was considered out around 1:30 p.m.

The area that burned isn’t used by the hostel, other than for growing wildflowers, Gomlak said.

It’s the same site that used to be occupied by the Jackrabbit Inn until it was destroyed by fire in June of 2007.

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