Massachusetts
Where brush fires are burning in Massachusetts
BOSTON – Dry conditions have persisted and with no rain in the immediate forecast, several Massachusetts communities are dealing with significant brush fires.
According to the Department of Fire Services, as of Saturday night there have been 106 brush and wildland fires reported over the last week. In total, the fires have burned around 600 acres.
Five new fires have been reported since Friday, officials said.
Massachusetts brush fires
Here is where fires are currently burning in Massachusetts, as of Saturday night:
- Cain Hill (Salem/Lynn) – 140 acres, 50% contained
- Middleton Pond (Middleton) – 188 acres, 70% contained
- Pappas (Canton) – 32 acres, 90% contained
- Wolcott Hill/Blue Hills Reservation (Milton) – 4 acres, 70% contained
- Curry 24 (Devens) – 100 acres, 99% contained
- Maple Meadow (Wilmington) – 10 acres, 70% contained
- Mt. Laurel (Holden) – 6 acres, 95% contained
- Traders Way (Salem) – 15 acres, 50% contained
- Old Forest Rd (North Andover) – 5 acres, 30% contained
- Bradway (Monson) – 44 acres, 90% contained
- Castle Rock (Saugus) – 22 acres, 80% contained
- Pond South (Middleton) – 4 acres, 60% contained
- Fitzgerald (Northampton) – 54 acres, 30% contained
- Moose Meadow (Montgomery) – 60 acres, 60% contained
- Howe (Spencer) – 9.5 acres, 30% contained
How to prevent brush fires
As fires continue to burn, the Department of Fire Services is asking people to take precautions. Here are their tips for preventing fires:
- Do not burn leaves. (Open burning is prohibited through January)
- Refrain from outdoor cooking and heating.
- Use caution with lawnmowers, leaf blowers and other power equipment as engines can get hot enough to ignite dry leaves.
- Dump ashes from fireplaces and wood stoves in a metal can, douse them with water, and cover them with a tight-fitting lid.
- Extinguish smoking materials in an ashtray with water or sand.
Massachusetts
Swimmer pulled from Houghton’s Pond after search
A teenager was pulled from a pond in Milton, Massachusetts, after he went missing while swimming Saturday night.
The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said the teenaged male was taken to a Boston area hospital following the incident at Houghton’s Pond. It’s unclear how long the teen was under water, and there was no immediate word on his condition.
State police had said earlier that they responded to the pond shortly after 7 p.m. for a person who entered the water and didn’t resurface. State police divers, detectives, troopers, and the Milton Fire Department were all on scene involved in the search.
The DA’s office is conducting an investigation with state police that remains ongoing. Further information is not being released at this time.
This story will be updated when we learn more
Massachusetts
Mass. man charged with posing as teen, exposing himself to 12-, 13-year-old girls
A Massachusetts man is facing multiple charges for allegedly engaging in inappropriate communications and exposing himself to children.
Orate Kyle Graham, 20, of Bridgewater, was arrested this week on two counts of disseminating obscene material to a minor and one count of accosting or annoying another person.
Bridgewater police said they were made aware Tuesday of allegations involving interactions between several girls age 12 and 13 and an individual known to them only as “Jay.” The individual said he was 17 years old during conversations with the girls through FaceTime and in person.
Through an investigation, police identified “Jay” as Graham, and also found that he had regularly engaged in interactions with the minor victims. During those interactions, he allegedly exposed himself and asked the girls to expose themselves to him.
He was arrested Thursday and taken to the Plymouth County House of Correction, where he was held on $25,000 bail. The case remains under investigation by Bridgewater police and the Plymouth District Attorney’s Office.
Massachusetts
Fisherman reels in white shark off Massachusetts, then snags the hook from its toothy mouth
BILLERICA, Mass. (AP) — Elliot Sudal didn’t need a bigger boat, but he did need to find a way to get a hook out of a shark’s mouth.
Sudal, a veteran angler and boat captain, reeled in the nearly nine-foot shark — also commonly known as a great white shark or a great white — on June 7 on Nantucket. White sharks are a protected species in the U.S. and must be released immediately when accidentally caught.
That presents a nasty problem for a fisherman because the white shark is a formidable apex predator best known for the 1975 movie Jaws, in which Roy Scheider utters the famous line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” upon seeing the big fish. Sudal, who caught the shark while fishing from shore, decided to use his encounter to demonstrate how to respond to such a situation.
Sudal posted a video of himself removing the hook to his social media accounts. In the video, Sudal climbs onto the back of the shark, secures the fish in the surf, and removes the hook from its mouth. By the end of the short video, the shark is back in the water.
White sharks typically have about 300 teeth arranged into five rows, so speed was key.
“Hooks out and back on her way in 15 seconds, not sure how to do it better,” Sudal wrote in an Instagram post that included a video of the shark release.
Sudal is no stranger to sharks, and has caught and tagged hundreds of them over the years. He said in a social media post that this month’s encounter with a white shark was the first time he has ever caught one of them in more than a decade of the work.
Sudal’s practices have sometimes attracted the attention of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, such as in 2017, when the agency investigated his handling of a smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species, in Florida. The agency said in 2018 that it sent Sudal a letter “informing him of the Endangered Species Act issues and the safe handling protocol for sawfish.”
White sharks are not listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, but are subject to special federal protections. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers them vulnerable globally.
Sightings of white sharks off New England have ticked up in recent years, and some scientists have pinned that to the greater availability of the seals that they prey on. Dangerous encounters between white sharks and humans are extremely rare, and only a few dozen fatal white shark bites on people have ever been recorded.
___
Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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