Shawme State Forest Fire Entrapment Fatalities 1938

Buzzards Bay Deputy Fire Chief Clarence Gibbs, along with volunteer firefighters Thomas Adams, Ervin Draber, Henry Jarvis and Gordon King were entrapped while suppressing a fire at Shawme State Forest near Sandwich, Massachusetts. The fire may have been caused by a group of government workers burning brush to clear an area near a military reservation in the area. Alternatively it is reported as an arson fire. Ultimately the fire that caught the men may have been a backfire that turned into a headfire when the wind direction shifted. Thomas Adams died on April 28, Gordon King on April 30. It was thought initially that Draber might survive, but he succumbed to his burns on June 18 in a Boston hospital.