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SALT LAKE CITY -- Several fires started at once along the parkway trail in Ogden Friday afternoon, and fire crews call them suspicious.
The fires are just the latest in a string of blazes in Ogden. There have now been 11 in the last 12 days, and three in the Ogden River Parkway area.
Seventeen firefighters from Ogden, Weber County and the state are now on hand to help douse the flames. They believe that this fire was human-caused, but they don't have any suspects yet. The fire chief for the city of Ogden says he just wishes they would stop.
"We're doing everything we can to put these out as quickly as possible," said Chief Mike Matthieu. "If anyone has any information, if anyone is talking or boasting about doing this, please call the 911 center here. Call the fire department, police department. Report any info that you may hear about that may hear about that may be related to who might be causing these, because we want them to stop. It's just stupid."
Matthieu says investigators do have a few leads they're following up on, but more information from the public would really help them out.
"We hope we don't have to resort to having to find them on our own. We hope the public can help with that, or the individual just realizes that this just makes no sense at all and just stops doing it," He said.
There is a lot of dry brush in the area and a lot of trees. There are also several bike paths through the area.
The parkway also has a lot of railroad tracks running nearby, but Friday's fire has not interfered with any of that rail travel yet.
Also, fire crew say there are no homes in this area, so that's not a real risk. The big issue is just that there been a number of these blazes, and they're consuming a lot of resources; and of course, the big worry is it's been so hot and so dry that it wouldn't take much for one of the fires to quickly get out of control.
Firefighters think they've got this fire fairly well contained and pretty much under control. They just want to know who is responsible.
E-mail: jdaley@ksl.com
