Calfire put out four small fires on the property of Jim Ingram in the San Juan Canyon area around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Eight trucks, a helicopter and two state firefighting planes responded quickly once the blazes were reported.
"If you put all four of them together, you would maybe have an acre burned," said Cliff Williams, a Calfire investigator.
"The airplanes spotted the fires and were already in the air because of a fire on Rocks Road."
The quick and aggressive attack on the four fires kept them from spreading in the dry grasslands. Williams said no determination had been made on a cause for the fires - contrary to the property owner's suspicion it had been started intentionally.
"When the helicopter first got there, they saw a vehicle driving away from the scene," the fire investigator said. "We stopped them, asked some questions, got an I.D. and determined they didn't have anything to do with the fire."
Williams also noted that the blaze's origin was so destroyed from the fire and hoses used to fight it, that identifying the source had been impossible to this point.
Jeff Gatlin Jeff Gatlin is a staff writer at The Hollister Free Lance. You can call him at (831) 637-5566 or send him an email.
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