The Official U.S. Maple Syrup Almanac 2015 | Page 11

Courtesy www.fireground360.com

The fire caused about $20,000 of loss, plus the loss of the building.

and dry.”
He’s thankful for the many
things that went right that
fateful day.
Since he was boiling on Sunday, the local fire department
volunteers were home and better able to respond to the fire.
They arrived within 10 minutes.
Another factor that made a
difference was the passersby
who manned fire extinguishers, aimed under the door to
the woodshed. Wisely, Boyden told them to not open the
room’s door, which would feed
the flames oxygen. Meanwhile,
Boyden sprayed the remainder of the building to prevent the fire from destroying
his most expensive equipment.
His actions spared further loss.
Many sugar makers have no
access to water in their sugarhouses; however, a fire back
in 1966, when Boyden was a
child, prompted his father and
grandfather to construct the
new one with closer access to
U.S. Maple Syrup Almanac

As the fire raged outside, Howard Boyden fought the fire just
inside the red overhead door as the evaporator still boiled.

the road for emergency vehicles (and tourists) and a nearby
garden hose.
That little hose played
a huge role in saving Boyden’s evaporator room. Before
the fire department personnel could arrive to douse the
flames with 30,000 gallons of
water (“the longest 10 minutes of my life” as Boyden
recalled it), the spray from his
hose helped soak the evaporator room and prevent its succumbing to the fire.
2015

Despite the quick action to
spare his property, Boyden lost
supply tanks, the woodshed,
and a supply closet that held
tubing, fittings and extra sap
buckets. Most of his sap buckets were on trees.
Outsiders may wonder why
Boyden didn’t carry insurance
on his 4,500-tap operation;
however, he said that it’s too
expensive for a wood-fired
maple business. Operating
as a separate business on the
400 acres of Boyden Brothers

Dairy, the maple business “is
fairly modern on one side and
fairly old on the other,” Boyden said.
He has used reverse osmosis
since 1981, but the evaporator
was built in 42.
Family and friends help
him and his four, part-time
employees during the busy season, and they all came together, along with many from the
community, to help his business rise from the ashes. Within 48 hours, volunteers had
cleared away the rubble and
closed off the open end of the
damaged building.
“The most incredible thing
of this whole experience was
the volunteer effort, people
who showed up the next day,”
Boyden said. “People showed
up with brooms, buckets and
shovels. An excavator was
dropped off.
“Some are people I see one
time a year. Some are maple
producers who live two hours
away. These are experienced
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