Sweet Home firefighters responded to three brush fires Saturday, April 19, all of them from burn piles that got out of control, Fire Chief Nick Tyler said.
Fire crews responded at about 1 p.m. to the first of the blazes, in the area of The Narrows, at 28190 Hwy. 20, which turned out to be the largest, covering nearly half an acre.
A couple of hours later, about 3:30 p.m., a second fire was reported on a brushy hillside in the 46000 block of Hwy. 20 off Shot Pouch Road. That one burned about an eighth of an acre, Tyler said.
Within minutes, at about 3:40 p.m., another brush fire was reported, at 39600 Crawfordsville Drive, which also started with a burn pile that jumped its parameters and burned about an eighth of an acre, Tyler said.
“The common theme was people burning in tall grass or next to brush,” he said. “And they didn’t have a water supply. When the fire left the burn pit, they didn’t have any way to extinguish it, to contain it.
“Those are the two things we recommend the most: Don’t burn in tall grass or around any other brush and always have a water supply available.”
Although Saturday was a burn day, that is determined by the state DEQ, which gauges how much wind there will be to disperse stagnant air (and smoke).
The problem on Saturday, Tyler said, was that the wind was “erratic” and caused issues.
He noted that Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District’s new wildland fire protection program provides homeowners with consultation from district personnel about fire hazards.
“With all the wildland stuff we’re doing, we do have capability if someone wants us to come out and look at their burn piles,” he said, adding that the department can also chip debris for a “small” cost.
The demands on firefighters, who also staff SHFAD medical units, left Sweet Home short of medical personnel, which required Lebanon Fire District to back things up.
“When those things happen, it not only causes a fire issue, but it takes our staff who have to respond to that,” Tyler said. “If they go out on a fire engine and we have a medical call, we have to have Lebanon help us. It depletes resources from the rest of the community.”
Although Sweet Home is still in the wet season, a few days of dry weather is sufficient to create burn hazards, particularly in dead brush such as blackberries, which were a factor on Saturday, he said.
“We saw some pretty impressive flame lengths for the middle of April,” Tyler said. “The Narrows (fire) was about 15-foot flame lengths and Crawfordsville was about 10. Those dead blackberries can go up fast.”