Child playing with lighter starts fire

The Moab Valley Fire Protection District attended a structure fire at 400 East and 200 South the evening of Wednesday, June 19. The fire began from a small child playing with a lighter in the grass, said Phillip Mosher of the Moab Fire Department. Keith Battalagia was walking home when he saw a small circle of fire on the ground. “It looked like someone was burning leaves, but no one was around,” Battalagia said. He said he saw a child leaving the scene. The fire grew and caught on bushes, a wooden fence and then onto a shed in the property behind the yard where the fire began.

Battalagia called 911 and alerted the residents about the fire. Mosher said that a circuit breaker in the shed tripped and created an electrical arc. Fire crews sprayed water and foam on the fire that destroyed a portion of the wooden fence and the shed. “It never got to any other structures,” Mosher said. Two firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion. The home owner and one officer were treated for smoke inhalation.