MORGAN HILL
– A charter member of a new volunteer fire department in the
Uvas Canyon area called in state firefighters Thursday after his
permitted brush fire got out of control.
MORGAN HILL – A charter member of a new volunteer fire department in the Uvas Canyon area called in state firefighters Thursday after his permitted brush fire got out of control.
The burned area was small – about 20 by 40 feet, according to the California Department of Forestry – and did not touch any structures, although it was within 100 feet of the house Hazen Anderson shares with his family.
CDF firefighters responded at 12:15 p.m. to Anderson’s 40-acre property at 5905 Croy Road. He said he had the fire contained by the time they arrived and extinguished it.
“I’ve had easily 20 (controlled) fires out here,” Anderson said afterward. “I’ve never had an incident like this. It’s embarrassing.”
Anderson was actually in the process of making his house more fire-safe in the wake of the infamous Croy Fire of fall 2002, which burned more than 3,000 acres, destroyed 34 homes and caused about $3.5 million in property damage.
At CDF’s recommendation, Anderson had cut trees and bushes from around his house to keep a forest fire from getting too close. He had obtained a permit to burn the vegetation, and he said he figured he had timed it just right. The grass was still green and rain was expected. In fact, there were showers later that afternoon.
“I planned it for the rain,” Anderson said. “(What) caught me off guard was the wind.”
Sudden gusts of wind blew the fire outside the boundary Anderson had intended. When he tried to put it out with a garden hose, he found that his spigot didn’t work.
For next time, he said, he will install a water tank on the back of his pickup truck to use instead of the spigot.
Anderson said he was the second person to join the Uvas Volunteer Fire Department, formed on the one-year anniversary of the Croy Fire.
Chief Photographer James M. Mohs contributed to this report.
