AUGUSTA — Firefighters from Augusta and the Maine Forest Service extinguished a fire on a small island in Togus Pond Sunday just off the causeway on South Belfast Avenue.

The blaze destroyed a small, roughly 10-by-10-foot shed or cabin on the island.

The fire was reported about 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Firefighters were at the scene until about 5:30 p.m., according to Battalion Chief John Bennett.

The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Maine Forest Service’s William T. Cusick.

Bennett said firefighters and forest service workers were shuttled out to the island by the fire department’s boat and a forest service boat. Roughly 15 people were involved in extinguishing the island fire.

The crews used portable pumps in the boats and forestry tools to snuff out the fire in Sunday’s temperatures, which reached the 80s. Fire spread into the ground cover of the uninhabited island, making it harder for firefighters to make sure it was fully extinguished.

“The island was only a couple of hundred feet from the causeway, but it was made more difficult by the rocky shoreline,” Bennett said. “That made it difficult to get boats landed. And due to the dry conditions, the fire was deep-seated in the duff and stubborn to put out.”

Augusta Deputy Chief Dave Groder said firefighters responded to a fire on the island about a week ago after another blaze was spotted there.

Less than a quarter-acre of the small island burned, Bennett said. Most of the island’s trees remain standing.

Bennett said conditions are exceptionally dry. The fire danger class in the area, according to the Maine Forest Service, is Class 3, or high fire danger.

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