(KOXE photo – Firemen shoot the water to a burn pile at a tree farm on the west side of Brownwood Wednesday afternoon)

Thick black smoke filled the sky over the west side of Brownwood around 3:00 pm Wednesday afternoon when a fire broke out at a tree farm at the end of High Mesa Drive.  According to Assistant Fire Chief, Darrell Johnston, the fire started as a controlled burn.  “They had a bunch of plastic buckets that they plant trees in in another pile close to it (the controlled burn).  The radiant heat from the controlled burn started the plastic buckets on fire so basically that’s what we have, just a big pile of plastic burning,” Johnston said.  There were no injuries and no structures were damaged.

(KOXE Photo)