There were brush fires in the Blue Hills last week. You could smell the smoke from here, and coming home on Tuesday, you could even see it.

I used to live close by, and I still often take the motorcycle through there. So, I followed the news closely. Fortunately, the rain over the weekend had put the fires out, at least for now, so I made a point to take a drive through there.

It turns out I’d slightly misunderstood where the fires were. I thought they were on the part of Hillside between the police station and Chickatawbut; instead, it was nearly directly opposite the Houghtons Pond parking lot.

I’ve been saying for years that the area was due for a fire — the area along the road has been choked with dead wood and brambles for over a decade. It looks like the fire started near the edge of the road, then climbed the hill a bit.

I walked a little way — a very little way — into the burned out section, and it was dispiriting to see how much broken glass was there. This glass looked like it had been through the fire, so clearly, people had been treating it as a trash can for quite a while. Odds are, the fire was probably started by someone flicking a cigarette out their car window as they drove by.

The fire destroyed a fair number of trees, probably affected wildlife, and could have threatened homes if the wind had shifted and it had been able to jump the road. But it also looks like it’s cleared out a lot of the underbrush, and that’s probably to the good. It would not surprise me if the DCR chose to conduct controlled burns further up the road, once the drought subsides, to get rid of the fuel load there.

Once I had finished looking at the burned out area, I drove past the Trailside side, then back along Unquity Road and back along Hillside again. It looks like those areas are fine.