PARK TWP. (WTHC) — Residents of Park Township’s Ashley Lane — and some of their nearby neighbors — got a scare when remnants of a weekend bonfire reignited Monday afternoon.
Judy Barense smelled smoke while working in the garden, walked into her backyard and saw “a pine tree going up like a torch. I could not believe it. I was never so frightened in all my life.”
She called 911 as her husband and her brother hauled hoses to the back yard and started soaking the lawn.
Park Township Fire Chief Scott Gamby said an Ashley Lane resident told him they’d had a backyard bonfire and thought it had been properly doused.
“There must have been one or two coals that sparked up,” Gamby said. That lit up dune grass. When firefighters arrived, they found a grass-fueled wildfire, with flames threatening a wood deck attached to one of the homes.
No one was injured and no homes were damaged.
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