MUKILTEO — Walk past Lighthouse Park on a sunny summer evening, and the place often looks like it is on fire.
Usually, it is.
Small beach fires — some legal, some not — are scattered almost every night on the sands of Mukilteo’s waterfront.
In addition to six permanent fire pits, more than a dozen illegal, makeshift pits often are squeezed among driftwood logs. Many of the park’s logs bear black scorch marks.
The fires can be fun, but they cause more problems than scorched logs, said Jennifer Berner, the city’s parks director.
“You have the coals, and you have all that debris sitting on the beach,” she said. “It’s just not safe.”
Sometimes people burn garbage, contaminating the sand, which washes back into Puget Sound, she said.
Mukilteo is considering ways to stop the damage.
Some think that banning beach fires might be the best solution.
Many cities with public beaches on Puget Sound have taken that step, Mayor Joe Marine said.
“If there are not any fires allowed, then it’s pretty easy to go up and inspect. (Staff) don’t have to go say, ‘Is that a legal fire, or is that an illegal fire?’ ” he said. “It’s a lot easier to patrol that.”
Banning the fires would stop problems that result even from the legal fire pits, said Larry Waters, the city’s public works director.
A few times a week, city employees take sand contaminated with scorched garbage from the beach to the dump.
When the city built Lighthouse Park, it tried to create an ecosystem with beach grass and logs, he said. Now, though, people drag the logs around and disturb the ecology.
“We have tried to develop an ecosystem down there, but people are treating it like their own private sandbox,” Waters said. “It is really being stomped into the ground by the weight of humanity.”
The park is suffering a little from its own popularity, said Randy Lord, president of the City Council.
He wants to consider enforcing the park’s closing hour — “dusk” — or creating a park fee that could fund a park warden position.
Lord doesn’t want an outright ban on fires, and he believes that only a few people are creating problems.
“Families roasting marshmallows? That’s fun,” he said. “I think we’re trying to sort out how to make it all work.”
Chris Fyall: 425-339-3447, cfyall@heraldnet.com.
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