A manager of the Holiday Inn Express who spotted the fire ran out with a fire extinguisher and tried to put out the fire before the Dayton Fire Department arrived, Capt. Brad Monnin said. He suffered minor injures from smoke inhalation but declined to go to a hospital.
“We had what appears to be a discarded cigarette into a mulch bed. It spread for a a little while and ended up catching a fast-food sign on fire and destroying it,” Monnin said.
Had the sign been closer to the building, it easily could have led to a structure fire, he said.
“A mulch fire can sit unnoticed for quite awhile because it will burn underneath the surface of the much, so by the time people notice it, it might be out of control, it might have spread,” Monnin said.
The number of calls for fires in landscaping picks up during the drier summer months, but Monnin said they are common all year long, and are easily preventable by discarding smoking materials properly.
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