Rhonda Klaszus was out on a walk with her camera in Red Willow Park when she passed by a loud group of kids near the bridge behind the St. Albert Centre.
"I didn't think anything of it, because that's how kids are. I turned to go around the corner where the bridge is, and all of a sudden they were yelling and screaming," she said. She turned to see what happened, and saw a patch of dry grass had caught fire. "Everybody was just scattering, and you could see smoke."
As the group of kids ran away, Klaszus said she heard a few of them say a girl had lit a McDonalds bag on fire and the flames had caught onto a patch of dry grass. She crossed the bridge to get to the other side of the river, where other people in the park were watching what happened. She was told someone had called the fire department.
"It's tinder dry out there, and I'm thinking kids sometimes don't think things through," she said. "Between the wind and how dry it was, it was a crazy thing to do for sure."
On Wednesday afternoon around 2:50 p.m., the St. Albert fire department responded to a call of a grass fire started by a couple of youth downtown. Fire crews arrived within minutes, dousing the flames that spread across an area of dry grass near the riverbank. The fire took about 20 minutes to extinguish.
Mike Bos, fire prevention officer, said firefighters were concerned the wind would spread the fire to the trees hanging overhead, making the flames more difficult to deal with.
"We had a report that the fire was started by a couple of youth basically igniting grass on the river bottom. For us, that's a concern with the amount of dry vegetation out there," he said.
St. Albert RCMP were also on scene, according to Const. MJ Burroughs. There was no damage to property other than the grass. No arrests or charges have been laid, and the police file is now closed, she said.
"It's unsure exactly how it was started."
The lack of precipitation throughout the winter has made for some seriously dry conditions. Three weeks ago, firefighters responded to a grass fire off Meadowview Drive thought to have started from a half-lit cigarette tossed out a car window.
"I think people really don't realize the risk with grass fires. They are fast moving. They are difficult to extinguish quickly, especially when it's windy outside, and you can get caught fairly quickly," Bos said.
"Small fires such as this, if it were to occur in an area where there's a lot of grass, and it was warm and windy, we would have a substantial fire to deal with."
Especially with dry conditions, Bos said he encourages residents to report any careless or unsafe activity that could spark a fire. The fire department also wants to remind people to do their part to prevent fires from occurring.
"Again, we want to point out disposing of cigarettes properly using a non-combustible container, using an ashtray. For us, that's always a concern," Bos said. "We want to make sure that those primary factors that are involved in grass fires are addressed."
