The first official grass fire within town limits lit up in Sundre last week.
It's possible the fire resulted from underage teenagers playing with fireworks, said Sundre fire chief Marty Butts.
The fire was about 150 feet by 50 feet near the Sundre Skate Park, on the south side of the man-bridge over the Bearberry River, on May 6, he said.
“Kids were saying ‘we seen some kids over there with fireworks and they were lighting them off and it got into the grass and they took off and so did the fire',” he said.
“People need to take the fireworks a little more serious than what they are. They're always connected with fun, but it can turn pretty bad in a hurry if not properly supervised or lit off in the right conditions.”
The cause however, has not yet been confirmed, he said. Jason Drent, the principal of Sundre High School was going to follow up with the students, he added.
Butts said names of those possibly involved have been noted and they will be talked to about the situation.
“I'm very concerned that we don't have a repeat because of all of the dry weather,” he said.
“We will be getting more conditions where we have to be more careful. We're going to have a worse one than that one was.”
This is usually a busy time of the year for grass fires in Sundre, he said.
Fortunately, this fire was put out in under five minutes of firefighters arriving on scene, he said.
Following the in-town fire, there was another grass fire east of town and several others in Mountain View County the same afternoon.
“We were dispatched to help out on another one but there were just too many going on at once,” he said.
“We've been pretty good for grass fires. We've been doing some mutual aid calls for the rest of Mountain View County, helping Didsbury, Cremona and the people to the east of us. They've been busier than we have been.”
