Fire Safety Warnings

MOWBRAY MOUNTAIN, Tenn. (WDEF) – A fire broke out on Mowbray Mountain and burned about 3 acres of land. It’s a good reminder to practice fire safety as we head into a busy holiday weekend.

On the 1500 block of Hotwater Road a fire broke out from residents burning litter and debris from recent storms.

Although it burned over 3 acres of land, fire officials say that due to the wind pushing the fire back on itself helped contain it.

Mombray Fire Department’s Assistant Fire Chief, Dustin Woodard said “This was a perfectly legal burn, it just shows what happens if you don’t pay attention to something for just a few seconds. It just takes a small ember even though we had a lot of rain recently the ground litter being leaves, grass things of that nature is extremely dry. This fire itself aside from the trees that it was up in behind us here ran across the top of the ground, across the top of the litter. You can dig in the ground about 3 inches and it’s not even warm.”

Multiple fire agencies and forestry agencies were called to the scene. Learning from previous brush fires, crews didn’t want to take a chance.

The fire is contained, but a warning was given for those who may be doing some holiday burning coming up.

Dustin Woodard said ” I know a lot of people are planning from all the storms we had cleaning up this weekend. Just be sure to have a good break around whatever your burning. Have a water hose handy and good steel break, so if it does take off you can at least slow it down and don’t wait to until it’s completely out of hand, if it gets out of what you have it in then you need to call immediately.”