By ANDY GARDNER

MACOMB -- About 50 firefighters on Friday battled high temperatures and rough terrain to extinguish a wildfire sparked by what officials believe to be a lightning strike two weeks ago.

Morristown Fire Chief Kevin Crosby said around 8:45 a.m. Friday morning, fire crews responded to an area across the street from 227 South Woods Road.

“We believe it was from a lightening strike a couple weeks ago,” Crosby said.

He said a nearby landowner noticed a tree starting to burn two weeks ago following a storm with thunder and lightning, but it went out.

“They noticed smoke a couple days ago” coming from the same area, Crosby said.

He said firefighters had to deal with rocky terrain to get to the flames.

“It wasn’t a lot of land, three to five acres, but it was all cliffs and rocks and jagged edges, just horrible to get to,” Crosby said, adding that no one was hurt and no property was damaged beyond the scorched earth.

He said firefighters from Brier Hill, Heuvelton, Gouverneur, Hammond, Lisbon, Rensselaer Falls, Oxbow, and Morristown fire departments were on-scene, along with, Gouverneur rescue and Morristown Fire Department Auxiliary.

‘It was a bad time of the day on a Friday, people are working. Guys did a hell of a job, worked eight hours on bad terrain and in heat,” Crosby said. “I appreciate all the guys and women that were there, they did an awesome job in the heat. I’d like to thank them for that.”

Crosby said they needed 250,000 gallons of water to put out the fire.

“It’s so dry, some spots we soaked for 10 to 15 minutes and it was still dry when we were done spraying,” the chief said.

He says fire officials are asking the public to refrain from burning until more rain comes.

“Obviously this wasn’t from any type of burning, but with it being so extremely dry we’re asking people not to burn, use burn barrels, not to burn grass or brush until we get a considerable amount of rain,” according to Crosby.