Spring has arrived and the temperatures soon will be getting warmer.

In addition to all of the nice aspects that springs involves, it also can bring brush fires.

“It's usually the first part of spring when you get a few sunny days in a row,” said Nathan Wulff, chief of the Unionville Volunteer Fire Company.

He said that warmer, drier weather causes vegetation, which dies over the winter, to be more susceptible.

“It becomes a lot more flammable,” Wulff said.

He said the vast majority of brush fires are caused by people burning trash. The best way to prevent these fires is to not burn trash. If people have to burn, he advised not doing it on a windy day and to choose a time when vegetation is damp from rain.

Some fires also can be caused by cigarette butts. He also recalled a fire near a junkyard that was started by a torch being used to cut parts off a vehicle.

However, he said he has seen brush fires decreasing.

“The past couple years, we've had probably under a dozen for the whole year,” Wulff said.

When called to a brush fire, Wulff said the first action undertaken by firefighters is to make sure no structures or vehicles are endangered.

He also said it is important to consider how windy it is and the wind direction.

“Wind direction plays a big part,” Wulff said.

Brush fires mostly are fought with brush trucks, which are pickup trucks with water tanks and pumps. Wulff said these vehicles can maneuver off-road to get to the odd locations where these fires sometimes occur.

Ron Steele, a captain with 58 years of experience at the Slippery Rock Volunteer Fire Company, said the company is getting ready.

“We just got our brush truck ready to go,” Steele said.

Over the years, he said he has seen an increase in these fires. He also said that people burning is a major cause. He said many people who burn trash do not put it in a pit, but instead just pile it up and walk away after lighting the fire.

“It's just carelessness,” Steele said.

He advised people who want to burn trash to make sure it is cordoned off or in a pit, to watch it and to make sure a garden hose is at hand.

Steele said he can recall as a young man riding on the back of a fire truck to Clintonville to fight a brush fire that became a forest fire. He also recalled getting a call to respond to what initially was a brush fire.

“Here, a trailer was on fire,” Steele said.

Chris Ballina, chief of the Saxonburg Volunteer Fire Company, said he has seen a decrease in the number of brush fires. He credited this to people doing being more careful when burning trash.

“People seem to be monitoring them closer than ever before,” Ballina said.

But, fires still happen.

Ballina recalled a fire last April in Clinton Township that destroyed a building at a landscape company. Employees had been burning leaves earlier in the day. Higher winds picked up leaves that had not been extinguished, igniting surrounding grass and the building.

The call initially came in as a grass fire.

“I pulled in and the whole building was burning,” Ballina said.