That’s right, you read that correctly. Our lawn burned down.
The other night, Valerie called just after I left work and couldn’t manage to tell me quite what was going on. Finally, I asked her straight up: What are you trying to say? “The yard is on fire,” she said.
Apparently, she had smelled a little smoke, but figured it was someone using their fireplace. About then, two neighborhood kids rang the doorbell and said, “Uhh, did you know your yard is on fire?” No. We didn’t, actually. Thanks, guys.
So, she and the two boys put out the fires (there were now multiple ones spreading across the yard) with the hose. I asked her if she needed to call the fire department, but she said she was pretty sure it was out.
I got home finally, and decided to call the fire department out anyway just to make sure everything was ok. Now, in their defense, I did say that I was pretty sure it was out, but they still just sent one guy in street clothes on the engine. He said, “I would just keep an eye on it every so often tonight.” Thanks. My voluteer firefighter dad was much more helpful and suggested I rake out any thick piles to make sure the fire hadn’t burned down into the brush (since our yard is wooded and covered with leaves in parts).
All I can guess is that one of the many kids that use our yard as a cut-through was smoking and decided just to flick his cigarette butt on the ground. With as dry as it has been here in Georgia and with the fertilizer that was on the grass from just the day before, it doesn’t take much to get a fire going.
It’s sad because I’ve spent a lot of money getting our grass into shape so we can potentially sell the house this year or next. Hopefully, it will come back. It was just a quick surface burn and in some climates they deliberately burn the bermuda grass so it comes back lusher and thicker, but it’s way earlier in the season than when they would normally burn the grass. We’ll see what happens over the next few months.