Local firefighters extinguished an excavator fire on the Sweet Home Ranger District Saturday evening.
Firefighters from the Oregon Department of Forestry Sweet Home Unit and the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District responded to the fire at 4:55 p.m.
The fire was located 3 to 4 miles off Highway 20 from the Yukwah Campground on a Forest Service road.
A Forest Service contractor had been removing culverts from a road the Ranger District was decommissioning, said ODF Unit Forester Craig Pettinger. The excavator malfunctioned and caught fire.
The road was tight, making it impossible to get large engines to the fire, Pettinger said. Firefighters had to cut away an area to turn around responding small engines and brush rigs.
The fire reached the ground, but it just burned an area about the size of a campfire, Pettinger said.