Saturday Night Fire

One of the things I love most about our house is the fact that our backyard backs up to a park. Really couldn't ask for anything better. Especially when the part of the park that we back up to is rarely used.

Tonight, on our way home from working at the church garage sale, we noticed some smoke coming from behind our neighborhood. At first, we thought it might be our neighbor's BBQ. The color of the smoke didn't look right...and then as we got closer we could tell that it was further out than their backyard.

So, as Tim unloaded the kids, I decided to walk to the park and check out the smoke. As I got to the end of the trail, I could see that there was a fire in the trees behind the baseball fields!! Well, if that isn't unusual. Especially when the temperatures have been in the 100s for the last couple of days and conditions would not be ideal for a controlled burn. I started to dash home to call 911 when I noticed other people walking towards the fire and could hear the fire trucks coming.

Before the fire people arrived, I was able to get right up to the fire. It was fairly small in size....but as dry as things were, I was a little surprised that it hadn't spread a little faster. I was thankful that it was in a portion of the park that wasn't too close to homes. The bad thing...it was difficult for the firefighters to get to it. In fact, as we were standing there watching the firefighters come up through the park, one of the fighters asked us if trucks would be able to come through from the high school. I didn't find that overly reassuring that there wasn't some sort of plan set in place in order to fight potential fires. I hope that this will wake them up.

One thing of interest tonight was some information that I heard from a city employee. In the last week, four small fires had been put out in those woods. Kids apparently have been having fun setting fires in the woods. While we were standing there, some other people came up and said that the toilet paper was burning in the outhouses there at the baseball fields. Crazy!!!

Guess that I will need to be keeping my eyes open from now on. Part of me wishes that that part of the park was more visible. But, I am thankful that that fire wasn't too close to my house. Kudos to Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue for getting in there and shutting it down as quickly as they did. Hopefully they will begin making plans for future trips into the park. It took longer than it should to get in there.

Craziness!! I hope they catch those kids!