Witness describes late night Chubbuck fire

A brush fire broke out near Hiline and Siphon roads in Chubbuck Saturday night and burned several acres.

Brock Maynard and his family live in a house right next to where the fire broke out.

He talked about what he saw. He said his family was just returning home when they saw the fire starting.

“It started in the canyon area and then it was coming up over the hill,” Maynard said. “Then it spread from the middle of the canyon up and out.”

Maynard said he saw somebody already there.

“There was a gentleman with a shovel,” Maynard said. “He started patting the fire. I asked him if he’d called 911 and he sad ‘No’ so I called 911,” Maynard said.

“Within about 15 minutes after I called 911, this whole hill behind me had burned,” he said.

Maynard said by the time firefighters arrived, the fire had spread down to the canal. But he said firefighters seemed to get it contained fairly quickly.

“They got it surrounded about 25 minutes to 30 minutes after I had called 911,” he said.

Maynard said while it was a little scary to have the fire so close, his family wasn’t too worried. He said firefighters got it under control quickly and there wasn’t a lot of fuel nearby for the fire to catch quickly. Plus, Maynard said, the fence surrounding the family’s home had some precautions in place. They had sprinklers on top of the fence.

“We had turned on our sprinklers immediately into seeing the fire burning the hill because we didn’t want it to completely demolish our fence and everything and to make sure our house was safe,” he said.

Maynard said they left the sprinklers on for awhile after the fire to cool off some of the remaining embers.

Maynard said his family is just grateful it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Chubbuck police said there were no injuries or structures damaged by the fire. Officers also confirmed there was no call for evacuations.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.