We had a little excitement brewing in our cul-de-sac this afternoon. We had just come outside to play when a tan truck raced up our street. Curren had just crossed the sidewalk onto the street so I had to race down the driveway to get him out of the way. I was a little perturbed the driver was driving so fast when it was clear there were kids out playing. I expected him to just turn around, but instead he parked a couple houses down from us. Two teenage (tree-hugger type) boys hopped out and crossed my neighbors yard. I could tell they were going to hop my neighbor's fence and head to the open space behind all our yards so I was about to yell at them to tell them that's private property so get out, but instead of completely hopping the fence they walked along the top of the fence to the open space. (I opted to play the "cool mom" and let them go do whatever they were going to do in the open space until a few minutes later. Which I'll explain in a second. I originally thought they were probably going to smoke some pot.)
About 5-10 minutes later my neighbor Leanne and I noticed some smoke billowing near the top of the hill behind her house. At first my suspicions came to fruition, yep they were smokin' some pot. But then we noticed it was quite a bit of smoke and we became concerned they were going to start a fire. There is a ton of brush on the hills behind our house and considering how dry it can get we could see a catastrophe brewing.
Our other neighbor Tim came out and after having a little pow-wow we decided we'd better call 911. Let them decide if it's a true emergency or not.
(Originally there were about 6 trucks, but since it was a small only two remained.)
The fire trucks finally showed up and once they had crested the road behind my house (also a hill) we saw the teenage boys book it up the rest of the hill. The fire trucks parked at our cul-de-sac, climbed the hill and put the fire out. One of the firemen climbed the remainder of the hill to see if they could track down the teenagers, but no luck.
(The little yellow dot is one of the firemen.)
The oldest firemen climbed back down the hill and told us they had started a fire in a little "man-made" fire pit. (Rick already knew it was a fire pit because he's run down that hill before.) It's illegal to start any fire in open space unless it's at a designated campground.
The fire investigator arrived a little while later and my neighbor Leanne and I provided statements since we both saw the boys climb the hill. Then a little while after that the CRPD arrived and they ended up towing the truck.
I guess I could've saved those boys quite a bit of money and trouble (from their parents and authorities) had I yelled at them. But then who's dumb enough to park their car where people saw them climb out of it, climb a hill (one with a bright orange beanie) and start a fire? Oh ya, I guess that would be teenagers. Was I this dumb when I was their age?
I'm hoping all the neighborhood boys who saw what happened will learn a little lesson.
Thankfully nothing more serious occurred. Besides the serious trouble those boys are in.
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