Grass fires 'little bit strange'

Photo: Oliver Daily News

UPDATE: 11:15 a.m.

Oliver Fire Department media officer Rob Graham said he was surprised by not one but two grass fires in the past week. 

"It is a little bit strange to have had a couple of grass fires already, considering that two weeks ago we had snow," Graham said. "And we had rain and a little bit of hail yesterday. The ground is not getting saturated enough to counteract everything."

The fire yesterday evening was small, reaching only about 60 feet by 100 feet before luckily petering out when it hit a damp patch. It was caused by embers from a nearby burn pile, just like the fire on Friday. 

"You know we get more calls that are complaints about burn piles, that people are burning that they're not allowed to burn because of the venting index, you know, that kind of thing is the more typical call around now," Graham said, adding in recent years at this time they weren't seeing an uptick in grass fires. 

ORIGINAL: 10:30 a.m.

For the second time in under a week, the Oliver Fire Department had to deal with a grass fire. 

On Tuesday night, crews responded to a small fire near the Road 7 and Highway 97 junction, Oliver Daily News reports. 

They report the grass fire was contained in about an hour and a half. 

This incident follows a small brush fire on Friday, which was caused by a nearby burn pile. 

Castanet has reached out to the fire department for more information.