Brush fires keep departments busy

November 24, 2008

Fire departments in Sharon and put out two separate brush fires yesterday, officials said. In Sharon, about 1/2 acre burned on East Street, in the back of the Sharon Country Club, fire Captain John McLean said. The cause had not been determined, but McLean said that when the weather is dry and the leaves have fallen, the ground dries and is "just looking for an ignition." In Foxboro, firefighters responded about an hour later to a brush fire in the median between Route 140 and Mechanic Street, Captain David Healy said. About 1/8 acre burned, he said. The cause had not been determined, but Healy said median fires are often caused by discarded smoking materials.

A woman who tried to light a cigarette in her room ended up igniting an oxygen tank and setting a fire that killed her yesterday. The Republican newspaper of Springfield reported that police said the oxygen tank was in the room at Norwottuck Hadley Inn for medical reasons. Firefighters from Hadley and Amherst responded. Authorities withheld the victim's identity until her relatives were notified. (AP)

Police say a speeding teenage driver lost control on a curve and struck a tree, killing a passenger. Authorities told the Republican newspaper that Carlos Montes de Oca, 17, died in the crash at 12:13 a.m. yesterday on Shaker Road. Alexander Merkulov, 17, was driving north "at a high rate of speed when he lost control," police said in a prepared statement. Merkulov and three others in the 1994 Toyota Camry were taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, police said. Their conditions were not immediately clear. Montes de Oca was remembered yesterday at a gathering at Westfield High School attended by about 700 students, parents, and school administrators. (AP)

Now that Robert LaPointe's criminal trial is over, civil lawsuits against the Massachusetts man arising from a fatal boat crash in Maine are set to take center stage. LaPointe's civil lawyer, Seth Holbrook, says opposing sides plan to meet soon and he hopes for a quick settlement of wrongful death claims against his client. The families of the two victims, Suzanne Groetzinger of Berwick and Terry Raye Trott of Harrison, are each seeking $475,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The two were killed in August 2007, when LaPointe's high-performance boat ran over their smaller craft on Long Lake in Harrison. LaPointe was found guilty of aggravated operating under the influence and was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison. (AP)

New England College is suing the former director of its poetry master's degree program, alleging that she lured faculty and students away from the school in order to re-create the program in New Jersey. Six faculty from New England College's small master's program have left Henniker for Drew University, where poet Anne Marie Macari now works. According to the lawsuit, enrollment also has fallen from 10 to five students this year. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, seeks compensation for lost tuition, the $33,000 salary the college paid Macari, and an order barring Macari from keeping her new job for two years. (AP)

Some leading Vermont college educators are among scores of their colleagues nationwide calling for a debate about the merits of the minimum drinking age of 21. The educators who have signed onto the Amethyst Initiative developed by John McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College, say the current law is ineffective. The initiative is a project of the nonprofit organization Choose Responsibility, founded by McCardell in 2007. The group argues that more young people are drinking irresponsibly in unsafe environments. (AP)