Approximately 25 acres of land were damaged, a pool house caught on fire and embers nearly caught houses on fire during an extra-alarm wildland fire in North Barrington Sunday evening.
The Lake Zurich Fire Rescue Department responded around 5:47 p.m. Sunday to the 22600 block of North Cherry Hill Road in North Barrington for a report of a wildland fire.
Lake Zurich Fire Rescue Chief David Pilgard said firefighters were responding when they received multiple reports of a large smoke header in the area.
Fire crews arrived and found a marshy area heavily involved in fire.
The incident was upgraded to bring additional Lake Zurich Fire Department resources to the scene.
The incident was upgraded again through the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) to the second alarm level for wildland resources.
Pilgard said the roof of a pool house caught on fire and embers came down in the area, spreading the fire in the marsh and on one or two homes.
Firefighters extinguished the pool house roof fire and worked to protect the homes from the fire embers.
Lots of deadfall trees and some dead standing trees also caught on fire.
“The first priority was protecting the houses, then we started knocking the [brush] fire,” Pilgard said.
The fire chief said it took extensive work to knock down, cut down and cut up logs and trees that were on fire.
“Great work by the Lake and McHenry County Wildland Team that showed up for all the hard work they put in here for a couple hours to help the fire crews extinguish the fire,” Pilgard said.
Approximately 25 acres of brush were burned. No injuries were reported to any residents or firefighters.
The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and Lake Zurich Fire Rescue Department.
Investigators were talking to people and residents in the area to try and determine what led to the fire, Pilgard added.