The Perry Volunteer Fire Department rolled northward into Boone County about 3 p.m. Sunday to battle a series of small ditch fires along U.S. Highway 169 between 290th and 330th streets.
The northernmost blaze gave the greatest concern because it was burning near the homestead at near 1926 H Ave., but firefighters quickly doused the flames once on scene.
There were no injuries in the incident, and the cause of the fires in unclear.
“I’m kind of thinking it was probably a discarded cigarette,” said Perry Volunteer Fire Department First Assistant Fire Chief Brian Eiteman, “but with two different fires occurring within about a mile of each other, the link between them had to have been a cigarette or something like that.”
Eiteman classified the fire as an accidental incendiary fire, that is, one caused by human action but not deliberately set. A controlled burn was ruled out, he said.
“Everything was really green,” Eiteman said. “Basically, the fire was going underneath all the green and just burning the dead stuff out from underneath.”
ThePerryNews.com will update this story as information becomes available.
