SEQUIM — Youngsters playing with matches started a grass fire off Fifth Avenue north of Fir Street on Tuesday morning, Clallam County Fire District No. 3 Lt. Bob Rhoads said.
No one was injured and no structures were threatened by the blaze, which covered a 50-by-30-foot swatch of a vacant lot behind St. Luke’s Episcopal Church at 525 N. Fifth Ave., Rhoads said in a prepared statement
Two 9-year-old boys were detained at the fire.
Officers found enough evidence to refer the case to the juvenile prosecutor for a determination on whether criminal charges will be filed, Sequim Police Officer Maris Turner said Tuesday afternoon.
When the blaze broke out at about 9:40 a.m., people working in the nearby Community Organic Garden of Sequim tried to put it out with garden hoses, Rhoads said.
“They were successful in slowing its spread,” he added, and when Clallam Fire District 3 firefighters arrived, “they were happy to turn it over to us.”
The fire was put out within minutes, Rhoads said.
Rhoads is both rector at St. Luke’s and public information officer for Fire District No. 3, so he didn’t have far to go before he reached the scene.
Also on Tuesday, District 3 investigators determined the cause of another Sequim grass fire, on Brown Road at Port Williams Road on Sunday.
A tractor used to mow the field was the culprit, Rhoads said, adding that a spark from the exhaust pipe or a blade hitting a rock could have started the blaze, which spread across 2 acres and took crews more than four hours to extinguish.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
