Area fire departments battle brush fire in Manorville woods Sunday morning

A smoky brush fire is burning in the Manorville woods this morning.

Manorville Fire Department got the call about the brush fire shortly after 7 a.m., Manorville Fire Chief Joe Danowski said.

“We were looking for it about 45 minutes and had to get a PD helicopter up to find it,” Danowski said.

The fire is “burning low” — in the underbrush, the chief said. It was located in the woods west of Swan Lake Golf club, north of Old River Road. It has burned about two acres in a couple of hours, the chief estimated.

Fortunately, the winds are calm today — about 5 mph from the south.

Because the area is not yet served by public water and there are no fire hydrants to tap into, firefighters must respond with tanks trucks filled with water to supply their firefighting operations. That makes putting out a wildfire all the more difficult.

Area fire departments have responded with tankers and brush trucks to assist Manorville.

“There are seven fire departments here right now,” Danowski said.

Manorville Ambulance and Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps are standing by at the scene. Riverhead Police and the Riverhead fire marshal are also at the scene.

An April 2012 massive brush fire in Manorville that burned more than 1,100 acres of woodlands, destroyed three homes a commercial building and vehicles, including fire department brush trucks, and sent one Manorville firefighter to the Stony Brook Hospital burn unit with second-degree burns. It required response from every one of Suffolk’s 109 fire departments, as well as firefighting helicopters. Driven by strong, gusty winds, the fire tore through dry woodlands on a day of low relative humidity — perfect conditions for wildfire spread. It took firefighters two days to bring that fire under control.

“This is what we are always afraid of,” Manorville resident Kelly McClinchy said this morning.