Brush fire burns grounds, bench, threatens building at Pumping Station Dam
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - Flames burn through the grove at and along the breast of the Pumping Station Dam near Brandonville on April 6, 2021.
BRANDONVILLE – Fire burned a section of the grounds at the borough-owned Pumping Station Dam between Brandonville and Girard Manor earlier today, threatening an outbuilding.
Flames made quick work of dry pine needles and grass just below the breast of the once-popular fishing and recreation spot.
Sheppton-Oneida firefighters were advised around 4:30pm of a large brush fire threatening a building, and arrived to find the fire was smaller than they had thought, though the fire burned up to the walls of a brick out-building, wrapping around three sides of it.
The fire also ran up the breast of the dam, atop which it burned a bench.
Fire crews quickly contained the fire, keeping it from spreading through the rest of the grove.
Fire Chief Kyle Mummey said the fire doesn’t appear to be suspicious, though a cause had not yet been determined.
The Pumping Station Dam, affectionately known as “The Pumpy” by locals, is owned by the Borough of Shenandoah, and has been since 1909.
The dam was once a part of the borough-owned water system when Shenandoah was home to three competing water companies, the borough-owned Shenandoah Public Water Works, the Girard Water Co., and the Citizens Water Co.
When the Municipal Authority of the Borough of Shenandoah (MABS) was formed in the 1940s, merging the three companies, the Pumping Station Dam became a recreational area under the purview of the the Shenandoah Pumping Station Project Booster Club, the Pumping Station Recreation Committee, and most recently, the Shenandoah Pumping Station Preservation Association.
A 1961 article in the Shenandoah Evening Herald described the facility as “among the finest trout waters in the state.”
In the 1980s, the facility was open to picnics and camping for Shenandoah Valley residents, according to the Herald.
The facility closed around 2010, when the Commonwealth Department of Environmental Protection ordered the borough to make repairs to the dam, which would’ve cost nearly $2 Million at the time, and the grounds have since fallen into disrepair.
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