Complaints of children playing with fire in local park leads to wildfire mitigation project

FOUNTAIN, Colo. (KRDO)- The Fountain Fire Department is planning wildfire mitigation in a neighborhood dealing with an increase in complaints of children playing with fire. To prevent wildfires from happening so close to homes, the fire department is working on a mitigation project that will take place on April 21.

The Fountain Fire Department Public Information Officer, Jared Cass, explained what the project will entail.

"If you look just down here, the tops of the trees are touching on both sides of this trail. So if there was a fire in this wildland urban interface area, this undeveloped natural vegetation area, and it got to the tops of the trees, it very easily could get over here and then get into homes," said Cass. "The stuff that we'll be doing in here as far as fuel reductions is going to be a lot of mowing. We're going to take these grasses from being, you know, up to somebody needs down to somebody's ankle. That's going to reduce that fuel."

The fire department said Hibbard Park was identified as being a high-risk area in need of wildfire mitigation. The department said they estimated 20 calls in 2023 with reports of someone trying to start fires, and in 2024, those numbers doubled. 

"We've had several calls where kids have come in and attempted to start fires by playing with fire," said Cass.

Kelsey Zobrist's home is close to where the mitigation will happen, and she was surprised when she heard about kids playing with fire.

"I've seen kids back there, and so now I'm more anxious knowing that that's potentially what they've been doing this whole time. Because I've seen kids back there multiple times. But I just like kids just exploring nature, right? I didn't think they were trying to damage anything," said Zobrist.