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Riverdale raccoon starts fire

A raccoon started a fire in Riverdale early Monday morning — unintentionally, of course.

A raccoon got up there in the power lines, grounded himself out and set himself on fire,” said Riverdale fire chief Jared Sholly. “He fell and started a brush fire.”

The fire — near I-84 and Riverdale Road in Weber County — burned less than a quarter of an acre. Firefighters responded at 3 a.m. and extinguished it in about 20 minutes. And the only casualty was the raccoon.

He did not survive,” said Sholly.

It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened.

We’ve had fires started by birds. We’ve had a couple of other animals get caught in the power lines and similar things happen,” Sholly said.