On April 17th at 3:55 PM Cottonwood Rural Fire Department responded to a report of multiple roadside fires on Highway 95.  The fires were near the South entrance to Cottonwood and on both side of the roadway, ultimately being 5 small fires and two tiny spots with several extinguished by Idaho State Police Troopers who were in the area.
The investigation of the cause of these fires revealed that they were all started by vehicle brake parts.  The indication is that there had been a catastrophic failure of a vehicle brake system, as there were metal brake chunks found at each point of origin.
Two things of interest are here..  One is that hot metal parts actually lit multiple fires, with the cool (39 degrees) weather and the high (65%) humidity.  That shows us how exceptionally dry our area is and the extremely high risk of fires that we may have this summer.  Please be careful this summer !!
he second is that there was that amount of failure on a vehicle, and we didn't see any vehicles parked along the road broken down.
So, for the favor.  We would like to look at the vehicle that broke down.  Don't worry, no one is getting in trouble, no one is going to be charged or asked to pay for any response from Cottonwood Fire.  Why do we want to see the vehicle?  We want to learn what happened and be able to use this incident in further training to help us understand and better prepare for future fires.
If this was your vehicle, car, trailer or whatever that broke down, please call City Hall at 208-962-3231 and we will work out whatever is needed to take a look.  We greatly appreciate everyone's support and work hard to be the best fire department that we can be.