BOULDER CREEK — Not far from the destruction wrought by 2018’s 400-acre Bear Fire, authorities arrested a Hartman Creek Road resident related to an unauthorized burn barrel they say spread out of control on her property over the weekend.
Cal Fire’s CZU unit responded to a reported fire around noon Saturday on the 200 block of Hartman Creek Road, in the Deer Creek watershed. The fire spread through trash piled on the outside of the barrel to nearly 4,400 square feet of nearby forestland, brush and multiple vehicles, according to a release from Cal Fire spokesperson Cecile Juliette. There were no injuries reported.
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“The property owner, a female adult, was recognized as someone who had been previously educated on the burn rules and cautioned not to burn again after previous escaped fires at the same address,” Juliette wrote in the release.
Cal Fire law enforcement officers booked the property owner, whose identity the agency did not reveal, into Santa Cruz County Jail on suspicion of recklessly setting an unlawful fire having burned forestland, a felony charge.
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California law bans burning garbage that is not natural vegetation. During this season of heightened fire threat, Santa Cruz County property owners must obtain a permit to burn allowed landscaping debris piles and must set a minimum vegetation clearance around them. No permit was on file for the property in question, according to Cal Fire.
Authorities credited the vegetation fire’s proximity to a nearby access road and the day’s calm winds for avoiding what could have become a more devastating fire.