Fire Threatens Historic Bird's Fort Monument in Texas

Firefighters had difficulty finding a fire in a remote area strewn with off-road trails Sunday afternoon. The blaze was quickly contained, a fire official said.

Firefighters battled a hard-to-find blaze Sunday afternoon at a historical site in a remote part of north Arlington.

Smoke from the 3:30 p.m. fire could be seen for miles as it drifted from the site east of North Collins Street and south of Calloway Cemetery Road.

The one-alarm blaze destroyed an office trailer belonging to Silver Lake Gun Club and threatened a historical monument dedicated to Bird's Fort, Battalion Chief Jeff Holloway said.

A motorist on Collins Street reported smoke about 15 minutes before firefighters could find the source, firefighters said.

The area is strewn with off-road trails used by four-wheeler riders and dirt bikers. A dirt bike rider guided firefighters in brush trucks to the fire, Holloway said.

"We got it contained pretty quickly," Holloway said. "The hardest part was getting here."

The 3-foot-tall stone monument, at the end of a long and bumpy gravel road, was surrounded by scorched grass but was undamaged. Bird's Fort was the first attempt at Anglo-American colonization in present-day Tarrant County, according to the city of Arlington's Web site.