A FIRE that was started by three men who burned freshly cut grass at a cemetery after finishing mowing it spread across a hundred rai of dry grassland before being extinguished with the huge blaze scaring residents, Naewna newspaper said today (Mar. 26).
At around 3 p.m. police and firefighters were alerted of a fire spreading at the cemetery in Uthai Mai subdistrict, Mueang Uthai Thani district, and they quickly went there to put it out.
However when they reached the cemetery they saw that it had spread extensively so called for additional fire trucks with 10 more from every subdistrict of the city rushing in to fight the blaze.
A Ford pickup truck too caught fire and policemen sprayed water to put it out but the whole vehicle had got damaged.
The fire then spread to the adjacent grassland and the firefighters drove into various alleys to prevent it from spreading to residential areas but it did reach the rear of Uthai Thani Teachers Savings Cooperative Office.
The fire-fighting team and police had at this point panicked because of the huge amount of smoke and the large area the fire had spread. Even so they did manage to put it out after two hours but by then a hundred rai of grassland had been razed with the residents too frightened.
One of the three men hired to mow the cemetery, Mr. Apichart Donpho, 44, said after finishing mowing they made a small pile of cut grass and set it on fire and slowly added more to it. However a violent gust of wind caused the fire to spread and while they tried to contain the blaze another strong gust caused it to spread further. The pickup truck that was completely destroyed belonged to him.
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The big grass fire after it was brought under control. Photos: Naewna
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