Firefighters on Thursday extinguished a brush fire ignited that morning by downed power lines near the intersection of southeast 416th Street and 236th Ave. southeast, just outside of Enumclaw.

Crews were called out around 9:05 a.m. Aug. 5 and arrived to find multiple fires burning, the largest of which had grown to 300 by 300 feet.

Power was knocked out to citizens north of the area, but the power line, which was laying along a ditch, was still hot, the department said, so crews had to wait initially for Puget Sound Energy (PSE) to de-energize the line.

“Normally, we can’t get close to lines when they’re down on the ground and still energized,” Enumclaw Fire Chief Randy Fehr said Thursday.

A downed but active power line is always looking for a ground, “and we don’t want one of our firefighters to be that ground,” Fehr added.

Fire crews had the fire under control by 11:10 a.m., according to the fire department. PSE crews spent the rest of the day repairing the downed lines.

The culprit of the fire, Fehr said, may have been the power pole itself.

“We suspect that one of the poles was rotten on the inside and kind of snapped, bringing the lines down,” Fehr said. “That action caused another section of line to come down.”

Enumclaw Fire thanked Mountain View Fire and Rescue, Puget Sound Fire, the Buckley Fire Department, Enumclaw Police and the Washington State Patrol for supporting them at the fire and covering other calls for service while crews fought the flames.