A downed power line caused the second line-sparked grass fire in two weeks on Sunday evening, scorching almost five acres of a farmer’s crop south of Corvallis.

Neighbors rallied quickly to calm the flames that started shortly after 6:30 p.m. in a field owned by Avery Jones at the intersection of Highway 99W and Payne Road.

Charlotte Jones, who lives just down the road, heard the line break.

“It was a loud ‘ka-boom,’” she said.

A quick investigation by her and other nearby neighbors revealed that the fallen line had started a fire.

Because Payne Road is just south of the boundary line that separates the Corvallis city fire district and the rural fire district near Airport Road, neighbors knew that they were on their own to combat the flames in the unharvested grass seed field

Calls were made and dozens of neighbors came out to help, bringing with them 14 tanker trucks capable of carrying 1,000 to 2,500 gallons of water each.

A Pacific Power employee also responded and shut off the power to the area with the downed line.

The fire created a tall plume of smoke that could be seen for miles around.

Luckily the wind blew the smoke south and southeast, which meant that Highway 99W was not obscured by the smoke and cars were able to pass by throughout the firefighting effort.

The volunteers had the fire wrapped up in about in hour.

Power was expected to be out for 22 customers in the vicinity of Payne Road for several hours on Sunday evening while the line was replaced and restrung.

A section of power line running between the BMX park and Evanite Fiber Corporation’s property in south Corvallis fell on June 29 also starting a grass fire.

Tom Gauntt, a spokesman for Pacific Power said that fallen lines are not uncommon in the summer months for a variety of reasons.

First, there is the heat. The lines actually expand and contract when the temperature changes, he said.

In addition weak areas are strained by the temperature and power demands of air-conditioning.

“They do droop just a bit more in the heat and when they’re carrying more load,” said Gauntt.

Combine that with dry conditions in the summer, and it’s easy for a downed line to start a fire.

According to Gauntt, another possibility is that dry hay blowing on the wind landed between two wires and closed the circuit causing an explosion that resulted in the downed line.

“It’s not common, but it does happen,” said Gauntt. “But, we don’t really know if that’s what happened or not.”