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After three miles of hiking on the Lower Bear Trail, the “disturbing” sight led Buz Cotton and his wife Quincee to cut their hike short Sunday.
“We got down to the (Elk Park) road and you can go to Upper Bear Trail and that is what we were going to do, but I saw a fire burning just off the side of the road,” Buz Cotton said.
The Cottons quickly called 911 to report the incident, but said the dispatcher seemed confused about their location and was not sure if crews would be able to respond.
“Somebody had this big fire the night before and they put large diameter logs on it and they had a big tree and they were burning one end of it and that is what was still on fire,” Cotton added. “It looked like they didn’t make any attempt to put it out.”
For the next hour, Cotton and his wife shuttled water to the fire from a nearby creek using small water bottles to tamper the embers.
“It was really disturbing to us because there was a little squall moving in and the wind was picking up and it wouldn’t have taken much for that to just take off,” Cotton said. “I just don’t understand how anybody could do that.”
The campsite was unremarkable aside from the smoldering campfire and a box of matches with a label depicting a steakhouse located in New Jersey.
