By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Quick action by the Alabaster police and fire departments prevented any structure damage to Alabaster’s City Hall after a brush fire near the building on Dec. 11.

A city police officer was driving near the City Hall at 1953 Municipal Way at about 8:20 p.m. when he noticed smoke near the front of the building, which is about a year-and-a-half old.

After the officer notified the city’s Fire Department, he used a portable fire extinguisher to suppress most of the fire, which started in a pile of fresh pine straw near an exterior spotlight.

“Pine straw had just been put out, and it just got too close to those exterior lights and caught fire,” Alabaster Fire Chief Jim Golden said during a Dec. 15 phone interview. “The police officer was able to put out a lot of the fire himself, and we arrived and extinguished the rest of it.”

Golden said the fire did not cause any structural damage to the building, and praised the police officer’s quick action in preventing the fire from spreading further.

“Everybody is proud of the new City Hall,” Golden said. “We are really glad we were able to catch it before there was any damage to the building.”