Fire Burns Around Homes On Cole Creek Road [AUDIO]

Fire crews responded to a grass-fire east of Casper call shortly after noon today (Monday). Fire burning past homes:

"Around 12:15 today (Monday), we were notified of a grass-fire off of Sandpiper road, which is just off of Cole Creek towards the west. First arriving units of Natrona County Fire District found a very rapidly growing grass-fire that started clear out on the east of Sandpiper and burned up to Cole Creek. We did lose one garage, shop-style structure, and damage, we're still doing damage assessment, but there's been numerous vehicles, a boat, everything that were damaged by this grass-fire."

Natrona County Fire Investigator Dave Baker said the swiftly moving fire around structures called for a change in strategy.

Save structures first, then hit grass-fire:

"Fire crews, normally we get on scene here and we go after the grass-fire; in cases like this where there's so much residential structures around, that's our intention is we let the grass-fire go by and we go to the structure and skirt the grass-fire around it until we get it into an area where we can contain it."

Baker said the preliminary investigation puts the cause as someone using a cutting torch. The burn area is between five and ten acres. Mr. Baker said crews will be mopping up well into the evening.