A fire which started in the national guard camp at what would become Otis, burned into the Shawme Crowell State Forest. The 12 mile long by 5 mile wide fire trapped and burned several firemen. Two men, Gordon King and Thomas Adams died from burns. Help came from several counties. Without a way to get to these fires while they are still small, fires would grow to thousands of acres in a short time.
Fires threaten power lines, homes, barns, and local villages.
It was not unusual for fires to burns for days, from one side of the Cape to the other. The invention of the brush breaker enabled men to quickly reach fires, either by fire access roads, or by driving cross country through brush and forested land as necessary to reach and attack fires with water carried on the brush breaker. Teams of brush breakers working together could quickly surround and extinguish many fires before the grew large. Soon after the first brush breaker was built, Barnstable County Forest Fire Department had several brush breakers built. Carl Stark in Osterville also built these on Ford chassis with a different brush bar and body work.