MALTBY — George Lee’s big red barn turns 100 this year.
His grandfather built the barn in 1915, on the family’s homestead on Maltby Road, where Lee still lives.
There was quite the commotion on the property this weekend. A distant relation had her wedding at the barn. The vows were delayed about an hour after two guests’ cars burned.
Investigators believe a catalytic converter from one of the cars started the blaze, catching dry grass on fire. A 2008 Infinity and a 2012 Ford Mustang both were destroyed, said Eric Andrews, the deputy chief at Snohomish County Fire District 7, which includes Maltby.
The incident was reported to 911 shortly before 4 p.m.
As firefighters headed over, they could see a column of thick black smoke, Andrews said.
“They requested more help right away,” he said.
Cars for about 200 guests were parked in three-foot-tall brown grass.
“The people were running to move their cars from the one that was burning,” he said.
Then the wind picked up and started pushing the fire east, toward the barn and other buildings. The wedding party and their guests were asked to move across the street until the fire was extinguished. It grew to about an acre before that happened.
The fire serves as a reminder to stay vigilant as the dry season continues, Andrews said.
“Those catalytic converters, they burn hot,” he said. “They burn between 900 and 1,000 degrees. They can go up to 2,000 degrees. It only takes 400 degrees to spontaneously light grass on fire.”
Crews from Woodinville, Monroe and Gold Bar assisted with the two-alarm fire. One wedding guest, a man believed to be in his 30s, was taken to the hospital after he collapsed from heat exhaustion while trying to help the crews.
The decorations were “luckily, on the other side of the barn,” Andrews said. “They might have gotten smoked up a little bit, but nothing burned.”
After the ceremony, the firefighters approached the bride and groom and offered to take pictures of them with the crews and the rigs. One photo shows the bride standing on the back of a fire truck, holding her bouquet
The couple, who are from Snohomish County and declined to speak for this story, “were happy and they loved doing that,” Andrews said.
Catalytic converter fires are more common in the dry months. A GMC minivan burned up that way in September 2012 along Marsh Road near Snohomish. Just driving through dry grass can be dangerous this time of year, Snohomish Fire Chief Ron Simmons said Monday.
The Arlington Fire Department had a catalytic converter fire a couple of years ago, Acting Chief Tom Cooper said. It remains a concern when grass fields get use as parking lots, he said.
That’s why the grass at the fairgrounds is super short, and organizers keep water or fire extinguishers nearby, according to the Monroe fire district.
Sultan Fire Chief Merlin Halverson put it succinctly Monday: “You can no longer park your vehicle in vegetation in Western Washington. Maybe in October.”
Once, on a wildfire in Eastern Washington, Andrews saw a deputy’s police car catch aflame after being parked in brush.
“We turned around and his car was fully involved,” he said. “People just wouldn’t think of how hot underneath their car is.”
There’s at least a month of fire season left, and heavy rainfall isn’t expected until September, Andrews said. Burn bans continue due to the extreme danger, and it doesn’t take much to get a blaze going.
In Snohomish County recently, two lawn mowers have started fires. The blades struck rocks or other objects and sparked.
Meanwhile on Maltby Road, George Lee, 92, is used to people stopping by to photograph his century-old barn on the hill near the Maltby Cafe.
Lee admits he was a little worried when the fire started spreading east toward the old homestead Saturday. He stayed back at the house during the wedding ceremony. From there, though, he could see the bunches of celebratory balloons rising into the air.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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