A Sinister Suspicion

A Pile of Wood and a Field Caught Fire in Quick Succession

Two fires broke out in quick succession(Bild: Leserreporter)

On Friday night, three fire departments in the Kremstal (Upper Austria) had to respond within a very short time. Shortly after midnight, a woodpile first went up in flames, followed just minutes later by a field. While the proximity of the fires in both time and location suggests arson, this has not yet been confirmed.  

Around 1:30 a.m., residents in Schlierbach were jolted awake by the siren. A woodpile near the Pyhrnbahn had caught fire and was already blazing fiercely. This posed a particular danger to the firefighters from the Schlierbach Fire Department: a high-voltage power line runs directly above the source of the fire. 

An Excavator Came to the Rescue
“We arranged for an excavator from a contractor, which we used to break up the pile. That allowed us to thoroughly extinguish the remaining embers,” reports Andreas Dutzler, commander of the Schlierbach Fire Department. The fire was out by shortly after 3 a.m., but the remaining work took about another hour.

The woodpile near the Pyhrnbahn kept the Schlierbach Fire Department busy for quite some time(Bild: Fotokerschi)

Next Alarm
Just eight minutes later, the firefighters in neighboring Inzersdorf were also alerted. There, a straw field that had already been harvested had suddenly caught fire for no apparent reason. While the Schlierbach firefighters had to continue monitoring the woodpile for smoldering embers until shortly before 4 a.m., the firefighters from Inzersdorf and Lauterbach had extinguished the field fire after about an hour.

Water from the Krems
“It burned fiercely, but we brought the flames under control with our wildland fire equipment. We drew water from the nearby Krems River, which carries enough water for this purpose,” says Stefan Winter, incident commander for the Inzersdorf Fire Department, describing the nighttime fire.

Although the field fire had spread, it was quickly contained(Bild: Fotokerschi)

Suspicion Remains
Because the two fires broke out in the middle of the night, without any obvious cause, in quick succession, and so close to one another, the police are investigating both cases. However, there has been no official statement from the authorities. Sources within the emergency services, however, say that it is virtually certain the fires could not have started on their own or by chance.