Crews are focusing on containing the fire zone on Neversink Mountain in Reading

Firefighting efforts on Neversink Mountain continued Monday with a focus on perimeter control and safety.

“What we want to do is control the perimeter,” said Jeremy Hamilton, incident commander for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, or DCNR, forestry division.

The division is leading the firefighting and cleanup operation, which is expected to last several days.

“We want to ensure that in the coming days the wind and heat will not cause the fire to spread beyond the existing footprint,” he said.

Crews also remove dangerous trees that could fall and address other safety hazards for firefighters and the general public.

Hamilton asked people to stay off the mountain until the fire was declared inactive.

The prospects improved significantly thanks to the hard work done since the crisis A fire broke out late Friday evening.

Crews continue to battle wildfires on Neversink Mountain in Berks

Crews worked Friday evening through Monday to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby buildings and causing further damage to the public and private lands on the mountain, parts of which are in the townships of Reading, Lower Alsace and Cumru.

“With the amount of work that’s been done over the last few days and the precipitation overnight, things are really starting to look good out there,” Hamilton said.

The fire is still considered an active fire and will remain so until it is fully contained and deemed extinguished, he said.

“And it will probably remain that way even if we run out of people,” he added.

A reassessment and better mapping of the affected area showed on Sunday that about 137 hectares of private and public forests had been affected by the fire.

The investigation is ongoing, he said, noting that the cause and place of origin of the fire will not be known until it is completed.

State protocol requires all wildfires to be treated as active crime scenes until the investigation is complete, he noted.

Hamilton could not say how many departments and crews responded. In addition to professional and volunteer companies from across Berks County, reinforcements came from across the state and beyond.

“We have employees from as far away as the state of Montana who actually came to help us,” he said.

These include a Hotshot crew of elite wildland firefighters from that state’s Forestry Division, as well as a team of Montanan Native Americans, members of the Cherokee Nation, from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The crews brought knowledge, equipment and labor.

The Native American team relieved exhausted DCNR District 15 support crew members from McKeen County as they maintained fire perimeters on the mountaintop high above the bend in the Schuylkill River.

The support team consists of volunteer firefighters from various companies, all of whom have full-time jobs, explains crew member Tim Christman. They will be reimbursed by the state for lost work time and expenses, he said.

The McKeen men worked about six hours Sunday after their five-hour drive to Berks. After another six hours on Monday, they took a lunch break before starting the long drive home.

Christ said the support team was called in last week for a forest fire on the Blue Mountain near the Lehigh Water Gap. With that fire under control, the crew divided its available members and sent six to the Huntingdon Pike Fire near Canoe Creek State Park in Blair County, and six to the Neversink fire.

According to the state, there are currently about six active wildfires in the state Fire, weather and avalanche centera non-profit organization that provides real-time interactive maps.

Since July 1, there have been 598 wildfires in Pennsylvania, Hamilton said, and the total so far this year was about 2,000.

“The vast majority are man-made,” he said.

Fire breaks out on Neversink Mountain in Reading; battle continues (updated)

While some are the result of arson, more often they are accidental or caused by carelessness. Campfires, trash burning and sparks from equipment can all cause fires, especially in dry conditions, he said.

Hamilton warned the public to take the fire ban into account despite the rain on Sunday.

“People are starting to burn again because they think it’s OK if there is rain, but it wasn’t enough,” he said, “and it’s going to dry out again.”

Berks County commissioners have issued a ban on open burning. The measure prohibits the burning of leaves, grass, twigs, litter, paper, vegetative material involved in land clearing, or any form of waste outdoors, either in a burning barrel or on the ground.

Violators can be charged with a misdemeanor, with increasing fines for repeat violations.

Originally published: November 11, 2024 at 5:00 PM EST