Colwood Fire Department responded to its first brush fire of the year last night.
John Cassidy, Colwood fire chief, said just before midnight, they received a call from a Bexhill Road resident on Triangle Mountain.
“The fire was first noticed by a building occupant. Because of the nice weather I believe the occupant was sleeping with the windows open and first noticed the smell of smoke,” Cassidy said. “He got up, noticed that there was a fire just beyond a fence next to his property. He alerted the people in the house and the downstairs tenant and 911 was called.”
They are currently looking into the cause of the fire, but two possibilities are human cause, or a composting issue. The area was being used as lawn clipping disposal by nearby residents.
Cassidy said historically they’ve had brush fires starting earlier in May.
“It’s about three weeks later than we usually get. Whether that’s people just being more cautious or it’s just statistically that’s just the way it works out,” Cassidy said. “We seem to be a few weeks behind where we were five or 10 years ago. Hopefully that’ll mean that we have a very limited fire season in the Western communities.”
The brush fire season in the Western communities has been less than in previous years, according to Cassidy.
“We’re leery about where we are because in the Western communities we’ve kind of dodged the bullet a little bit in the past two or three years as we haven’t had our usual brush fire season,” Cassidy said. “It seems like people are a little more sensitive about their activities and we’ve definitely seen a drop in brush fires in the Colwood area, and generally in the Western communities.”