DISCOVERY BAY — After three roadside fires erupted within a couple miles of each other on U.S. Highway 101 on Monday afternoon, fire officials are looking into the possibility of arson, Discovery Bay Fire Chief Ben Cooper said.
“All our fires today were on the same side of the road, so we can’t rule that out yet,” Cooper said Monday.
But, he said another possibility of the fires’ origin could have been a vehicle dragging a chain or other metal on the ground to create sparks that ignited the extremely dry brush on the side of the road — or cigarettes thrown from a moving car.
A fourth brush fire Monday was extinguished in Brinnon on the same side of Highway 101 by Brinnon firefighters at the same time Jefferson County fire crews were busy putting out the Discovery Bay fires.
The Brinnon fire was only about 10 feet by 10 feet and was extinguished in a few minutes.
Fire in Port Hadlock
The fires erupted a day after another brush fire in Port Hadlock in which two acres were consumed by flames on Nesses Corner Road near Hadlock Building Supply.
East Jefferson Fire-Rescue Chief Mike Mingee said that fire was a result of an illegal burn and evidence how dry the brush is this time of year.
“We’re in a high fire danger,” Mingee said Monday. “Any careless act can escalate into a fire like we had [on Sunday].
“Until we get a decrease in temperature or some precipitation, there’s going to be high chance of fires.”
The largest fire Monday burned about an acre of brush on the south side of Highway 101, just east of Fat Smitty’s restaurant at the junction of state Highway 20.
Loren Phelps was working in the restaurant at the time of the fire and noticed it in its early stages before fire crews arrived at the scene.
Spraying water from a garden hose onto the flames, Phelps said he tried to keep the fire away from the eatery.
“The wind picked up and, boom, this wall of flames was coming at me,” Phelps said.
20-minute battle
Fire crews soon arrived and began dousing the flames with water.
It took about 20 minutes to get the fire under control.
Fire crews from Discovery Bay, Quilcene and the state Department of Natural Resources fought the fire.
The restaurant was not damaged.
About three miles west of Fat Smitty’s, another fire was burning westward up a hillside.
Capt. Willie Knoephle, a Discovery Bay Fire Department volunteer, was the first to arrive.
He began uncoiling the hose on the engine he was driving when an unknown man stopped and identified himself only as a logger, Knoephle said.
The man began helping Knoephle with the hose then said, “I’m going to go get my corks,” referring to his logging boots, Knoephle recalled.
When he returned from his truck, he ran up the side of the forested hill to point to the crucial spots for Knoephle to aim his hose.
After the 40 minutes it took to control the flames that scorched about three-quarters of a mile of brush, Knoephle looked around for the Samaritan-logger but was unable to find him, he said.
