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Show I Has Milford got a fire bug? Certainly, there are a lot of , local people who think so. The rash of fires in the last couple of weeks leave many unanswered questions. In I fact, the only Are with a logical explanation is the electrical fire at Essex last Tuesday evening. J The fire on the Hazel ! Moore property on June 29, j could have been fireworks-through fireworks-through no evidence has been found. The abandoned old house has been the location of several fires in the past several years, however, there is no power or heat at the house. In at least one instance, in-stance, a fusee was found propped against the house where the fire started. Last Tuesday, the Local Depart ment received a workout with the call to Essex and then the huge fiery inferno in the alley of the 200 North Block between Main and 100 West would not draw much attention were it not for the fact that another fire was extinquished only minutes before less than a half block down the alley. This Ore, also started in an out building, was extinquished ex-tinquished with a garden hose by Mark Nelson, after his sister discovered smoke coming from a building across the alley from the Nelson home. No alarm was turned in, nor questions raised until the big fire moments mo-ments later. Cause of neither blaze has beenestab-lished. beenestab-lished. On Thursday, July 4th, a grass fire on the Russel Mayer farm, burned considerable consid-erable acreage before being extinquished. No cause determined. de-termined. Sunday's fires, both started start-ed along the down wind side of the pole line road, burned out of control, up and over the mineral range, Kirk's Canyon and around the point, burning an esti mated 5,000 acres. Cause is undetermined, but authorities have ruled out lightning and spontaneous spontane-ous combustion. There were two distinct separate fires and it's felt that one could not have caused the other, since wind conditions would not have carried sparks from the first to the other. Investigation is continuing. To date, there is little proof that Milford again has a fire bug. The fire bombs, fusees and other evidence of past years have not shown up. There is little evidence to back up local suspicions. But the suspicions are prevalent. Dry conditions make almost any area a tinder box. All suspect fires have been started in remote areas or in back alleys. A pattern may be developing. de-veloping. At this point, all evidence is circumstantial. We urge all residents to report any thing, or anyone suspicious. Report anyone seen in the vicinity of a fire within a short period before. If we do have some nut setting set-ting these fires, the home or life you save, may be your own. There has also been some discussion as to the number of people following the fire truck. Local officers have not been writing tickets, and we believe this to be the best policy. A s mall town volunteer fire department often needs help from local citizens, and to write tickets would soon discourage all of this surplus help, often the difference between salvaging some-thlng-or nothing. However, sightseers should stay back, out of the way of the firefighters. They should never race the truck, or even try to stay close. Remember-ilghting fires Is a tough job-help, dont hinder your fire department. -0- One thing of which there Is little doubt, the fires In the Mineral Range could have been stopped long before they reached the mountains and Cedars, had the local departments depart-ments received help from the BLM and Forest Service when It was called for. -0- We have first-hand knowledge know-ledge that Sheriff Talt called for bombers early In the afternoon, af-ternoon, in plenty of time to douse the fires before they HERE'S MORE ABOUT JUST BETWEEN (Continued from Page One! enough crew for one bomber. -0- The point Is this - the fires could have been contained in maybe 2-3,000 acres of grass land, had BLM and the bombers responded immediately. immedi-ately. Had local fire fighters (Milford, South Milford, and the Forest Service truck) known that no help was coming, com-ing, they would have coordinated coordi-nated their efforts, and possibly pos-sibly been able to contain at least one blaze. Their efforts, with the help they expected, were well aimed, with the equipment they had, but they were let down when help didn't come as promised. .0- The result - many thousands thou-sands of acres burned and many thousands of dollars spent, over several days, instead in-stead of what it could have been. reached the trees and canyons. can-yons. While local BLM Fire Warden Ron Bailey was soon on the Job, the Fillmore office of-fice evidently didn't mobilize until the smoke reachedFill-more. reachedFill-more. By this time, after 7:00 p.m. (the fire wasfirst spotted spot-ted about 2-2:30 p.m.), the fire had burned up the west side of the mountain and began be-gan down the east side. -0- We believe that BLM was apathetic due to the many fires that have burned themselves them-selves out in the sparse sagebrush land. The bombers bomb-ers didn't arrive until late because pilots couldn't be found. In fact, there was only |