Boy, 7, starts 2-acre fire near Cloverdale

<p>Fire officials say unseasonably cool, damp weather helped prevent a catastrophe Wednesday outside Cloverdale, where two brothers, aged 7 and 10, playing with a lighter started a 2-acre fire.</p><p>The youngest boy was practicing building campfires shortly before 5 p.m. when the flames got away from him and spread through a wooded area near his Cherry Creek Road home, fire personnel said.</p><p>“With this cooling pattern that we've had this week it was not typical of July weather, which is what I counseled the family,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief George Morris said. “Any other time this fire would have been catastrophic for this time.”</p><p>The boys recently moved with their parents from Montana to their home less about a mile up the winding, rural road that climbs west out of town, Morris said.</p><p>The youngest had a built a fire ring of stones but had not cleared brush or grass from the area, allowing the fire to get out of control, Morris said.</p><p>His mother saw what had happened and reported the fire, he said.</p><p>“It wasn't too far from Cloverdale fire, so the response was pretty quick,” Morris said.</p>