Big fire at Spier Falls dam halts power generation

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

A fire fought by 10 local fire companies at Spier Falls Dam in Moreau on Saturday evening wreaked havoc on the 56 megawatt hydroelectric plant owned by New York City-based Brookfield Renewable U.S.

“Unfortunately, the powerhouse at the Spier Falls hydropower facility has been lost to the fire,” the company said in a statement.

“Brookfield plans to restore operations, but we don’t currently have a timeline,” Mark Luciano, Brookfield Renewable Stakeholder Relations Manager, told The Chronicle Tuesday. He said Spier Falls is one of 74 hydro dams Brookfield owns in New York.

The company statement said, “At this time, we would like to convey to the public that we have no dam safety concerns. We would like to express our gratitude to all the first responders who helped subdue the fire and are certainly thankful that nobody was hurt.”

The cause of the fire isn’t yet known.

“The investigation is ongoing and no additional information is available at this time,” New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services spokesman Colin Brennan told The Chronicle Tuesday.

South Glens Falls Fire Company Chief Pete Corlew said 10 local fire companies, at least 75 people, and at least 15 pieces of apparatus battled the blaze well into the early morning hours on Sunday.

Chief Corlew said, “We cleared the first time probably around 1 a.m. But it wasn’t totally put out.”

It was still smoldering Monday.

Responding fire departments included South Glens Falls, Corinth, West Glens Falls, Queensbury Central, Fort Edward, Gansevoort, Maple Avenue, Greenfield, Argyle and Kingsbury.

Chief Corlew said his department got dispatched to the fire at 6:04 p.m.

He said the report initially came in as an “outside fire smoke condition.” But minutes later, after several calls into Saratoga County, it was changed to a “commercial structure fire.”

“I believe passerbys originally reported it,” Chief Corlew said. “I know Corinth could see it. I was actually in Kingsbury at a wedding when I responded. I could see it from there. So we definitely knew something was going on, and with the column of smoke and how black it was, we knew it was definitely larger than a grass or brush fire.”

Arriving on scene, Chief Corlew said, “There were two different buildings, both well-involved when we got there.”

He said “with the location of that back building, we could go through the front building there, but unfortunately we couldn’t get to the back building. The back building had the old barn wood timber floors. Unfortunately with those and the roof collapsing, it made it extremely tough for extinguishment.”

The back building ended up a total loss.

“The front building, being more of a metal and tin structure, obviously that one is still standing,” Chief Corlew said, adding that it “did incur a lot of heat, so I’m not really sure whether that’s able to be rebuilt or if everything has to be taken down.”

The location made the fire especially difficult to fight. “Some of the apparatus was just parked, because with the location of the plant and the accessibility not being there, we were just using manpower more than apparatus,” Chief Corlew said.

“The front building wasn’t too much of an issue as far as working on extinguishment. But obviously you have the river on one side of the power plant, and you have a small access road on the left-hand side, which we were not able to get trucks down. So we were literally fighting the fire from the front of the building and up on top of the left-hand side of the dam, and trying to spray over the gap between the embankment and trying to hit the building from there.”

Moreau Town Supervisor Jesse Fish was on the scene himself that night. “I was very impressed by the amount of people, trucks, apparatus and everything,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for better.”

“Nobody was hurt,” Mr. Fish added. “That’s the most important thing.”

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