Brush, vehicles and a mobile home burned today in Grand Mound / Courtesy photo by Lanette Dyer
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
A fire at a Grand Mound wrecking yard today spread to five acres and destroyed three vehicles as well as an unoccupied mobile home.
The cause is under investigation, but it ignited soon after a customer smoking a cigarette left the area, according to West Thurston Regional Fire Authority.
Firefighters called about 2:15 p.m. to the scene at 183rd Avenue Southwest and Case Road were joined by three neighboring departments as the wind kicked up, Fire Lt. Lanette Dyer said.
Some 20 firefighters were assisted by others from the Department of Natural Resources who brought a 10-person hand crew from Cedar Creek Corrections Center, Dyer said.
The flames were stopped right at a fence line where nine horses were pastured, she said. One southbound lane of Interstate 5 near milepost 90 was shut down for about an hour as some fire apparatus had to access it from the freeway.
They got it under control just after 3:30 p.m.
Dyer repeated what others in the fire service have been saying for the past week:
“The ground is real dry, we have real low humidity, and at this point, it’s the perfect conditions for huge fires,” she said.
Today’s fire at Newton’s Wrecking Yard burned a mobile home used for storage of items including family heirlooms and three of the business’s vehicles before creeping under the fence and consuming about two and a half acres of brush and trees, according to Dyer.
Nobody was injured.
It was just last Wednesday on the opposite side of Interstate 5 where nearly five acres of scotch broom were ignited by a spark from a lawn mower.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter