CalFire officials are investigating a second suspicious fire in a month in Morongo Valley. According to Morongo Valley Fire Captain Jeff Rarey, multiple people stopped by and called the fire department just after 3:30 Monday afternoon to report a fire behind the basketball courts in Covington Park. Rarey said as firefighters left the station, they saw heavy smoke coming from the park. The fire was burning wood chips and dead vegetation. Rarey said it took firefighters about 10 minutes to lay down a wet line of water around the quarter-acre fire and keep it from spreading. He added that the fact that the wind was fairly light was in their favor in containing the blaze. The fire was out in about an hour. Two CalFire units from Yucca Valley assisted and CalFire is leading the investigation into the cause. On May 9, firefighters responded to a half-acre fire about the same time of day burning in the trees behind the softball fields on Park Avenue.
