ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Three teenagers helped contain a forest fire on city land in Houston early Saturday morning using buckets to haul water from a nearby river, according to Houston Public Safety Director Christian Hartley. <\/p>\n
A warming fire had escaped its container onto forest land near the Little Susitna River Campground, Hartley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an active fire, about 1 foot flame length in dead grass and a lot of fallen logs,\u201d Hartley said. <\/p>\n
He said when Houston Fire Department crews arrived alongside the West Lakes and Willow fire departments, they found three teens already working a bucket brigade, hauling water from the nearby Little Susitna River using buckets and containers in an effort to slow the fire\u2019s spread. <\/p>\n
The teens carried water about 60 feet from the river to the fire\u2019s edge, slowing the spread just enough for firefighters to gain control, Hartley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been really easy for that wind to have pushed that fire through all of those forested lands around those businesses and that park,\u201d Hartley said. <\/p>\n
Fire contained in 10 minutes <\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cThe success that we had was because of how they set us up for that,\u201d Hartley said. <\/p>\n
He said firefighters extinguished the fire in 10 minutes. What started as a 1-foot-by-1-foot fire ended up <\/b>at 30 feet by 15 feet. <\/p>\n