Quick-thinking firefighters save New Brunswick lighthouse

GRAND MANAN, New Brunswick --Black soot surrounds Grand Manan's iconic Swallowtail Lighthouse after firefighters extinguished a near-disastrous fire on the weekend.

To save the 147-year-old lighthouse from destruction, a group of volunteer firefighters used a technique from the Canadian Prairies to extinguish a grass fire that could have destroyed thelighthouse and a nearby inn on Sunday on this island off the Maine coast.

For a few dreadful moments, the future of one of New Brunswick's most recognizable shorelines looked bleak.

"When I got the call, I phoned the lieutenant who was at the scene and said, 'Can you tell me what's burning?'" said Grand Manan Fire Chief Colin Bagley. "He said, 'I think the whole lighthouse is going to go.'"

When Bagley arrived at the scene, the fire trucks had yet to arrive with pumps. With flames rising as high as 30 feet, firefighters had only a few spare tools to fight them: a sheet of plywood, one shovel and a backpack full of forestry items.

That's when Bagley decided that only way to put out the fire was to set back fires, a technique most commonly used in dry regions of the Midwest when water isn't available.

Bagley went to the base of the lighthouse and deliberately set small fires, letting them spread for a few meters to burn up any grass or ground debris before putting them out.

"We were burning everything, so the big fire that had the wind pushing it toward the lighthouse would run into black ground and go out," Bagley said. "That's about the only thing we could do until the trucks arrived."

It took about 20 firefighters to finally suppress the fire, but it was the back fires that proved the most crucial.

Swallowtail Lighthouse was identified in 2006 as one of New Brunswick's top 10 endangered lighthouses. It is widely considered to be one of the province's key tourist attractions and is one of the most photographed lighthouse in the Maritimes.