Fire Crews Mop Up Grants Pass Fire

Fire crews have made tremendous progress on the Beacon fire, which started Friday afternoon near Grants Pass.

Crews worked overnight to contain several hot spots and today they made sure the fire didn’t spread any further.

It was hard to miss, smoke billowing into the sky Friday was the result of the first wildfire of the season.

Saturday Brian Ballou, of the Oregon Department of Forestry, drove through the area and surveyed the damage.

“This fire was pretty exciting for the first two or three hours and there could have been some significant loss. But as it turned out, everything went the way it was supposed to.”

The fire consumed approximately 125 acres.

One home was slightly damaged in the fire and a nearby outpost was entirely destroyed, fortunately no one was injured.

Today between 50 and 75 firefighters mopped up the mess.

“…which is a laborious process of running hose everywhere that you can, or hauling five gallon bags of water on their backs, taking them out to the widely scattered hot spots that are in through here.”

While officials expect this fire season to be one of the worst it recent years, Ballou says this fire actually did a bit of good.

“It cleaned up a lot of the decadant manzanita, a lot of the dead downed branches and things. All that stuff is fuel for a wildfire.”

It’s also a preview to fire season 2013 which officially begins on Monday.

Investigators believe a car driving on I-5 may have caused the fire to start.

There have been several reports of a vehicle driving that had sparks flying behind it.

Anyone with information is asked to call the authorities at 541-471-3883.

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