At 1730 hours Canton Fire was dispatched mutual aid to Star Lake Fire for a reported working fire at the former Newton Falls Papermill. Star Lake units had arrived to find the office area of the abandoned paper mill fully involved in fire. After rapidly depleting their limited local resources, they determined that more help was needed from a further distance as this would be a manpower intensive operation needing fresh interior firefighting personnel. Star Lake requested additional interior firefighters from multiple departments including Gouverneur, Canton, Potsdam, and Tupper Lake Fire Departments. Canton personnel were enroute with Rescue 1 and Rescue 36 at 1739. Shortly after the initial request, Canton Tower 1 and Potsdam Tower 5 were requested to respond to the scene. Tower 1 began the 38 mile trip to Newton Falls minutes after being requested. Rescue 1 and Rescue 36 arrived at 1815 hours and joined personnel from multiple departments in the firefighting operation. Tower 1 and Potsdam Tower 5 arrived around the same time and were set up for aerial master stream operations. Firefighters worked for several hours in an extended operation to quell the flames. Fortunately there were no injuries and all Canton units were back in service at 2311 hours.

This was a unique incident as the mutual aid came from 4 counties along the State Route 3 corridor with Tupper Lake (Franklin County) coming from the east and Natural Bridge Fire (Jefferson County) and Harrisville Fire (Lewis County) coming from the West. They joined Cranberry Lake Fire, Edwards Fire, Fine Fire, Canton Fire, Potsdam Fire, and Gouverneur Fire (all from St. Lawrence County) in providing assistance to Star Lake Fire. Also responding to the scene were Cars 3, 4, 6, 36 from the St. Lawrence County Office of Emergency Services, Cars 38 and 39 from the St. Lawrence County Fire Investigation Team, the St. Lawrence County Sheriff's Office, the New York Stat Police, the New York State Office of Emergency Management and Potsdam Rescue Squad with their Scene Support / Rehab unit.