ALPINE, Utah – Fire crews responded to a blaze in Alpine that was sparked by juveniles who were playing with a lighter and igniting the highly flammable seeds from cottonwood trees.
Brad Freeman with the Lone Peak Public Safety District said a fence may have been damaged but no structures sustained damages and no one was injured by the fire, which was in the area of Canyon Crest Road and Ridge Drive in Alpine.
Freeman said two fire crews were deployed in the area, one near a neighborhood and the other by a nursing home near the small grove trees where the fire broke out.
“We had some teenagers playing with a lighter who actually started the fire,” Freeman told FOX 13 News. “…No, they didn’t know that the cottonwood would spread it that quick.”
Freeman said the seeds from the trees are very flammable, and he said at this time of year the conditions are especially ripe for fire among cottonwood trees. He said they are still determining what to do with the juveniles who started the fire, and it is not clear at this point if they will be cited.
