Burning Bush

My next door neighbors are having a lot of outside jobs done. Someone has built a beautiful dry wall to terrace part of their cypress grove and today the workers are burning the grass cuttings and other debris they removed in the process. Smoke has been billowing out from a spot below my garage all day and, although it sure smells good, I'm a little concerned. It's 5:45 in the afternoon and by this hour most day workers have gone home. Also, it hasn't rained for weeks. Nobody down there is answering my "yoo-hoos" and I'm going to give them another 20 minutes before I take action.
Many years ago, around 1989, the former owner of that property was awakened in the night by the smell of smoke and the crackling of burning branches. Marianne looked out her front door and saw that all the small trees in front of her house were blazing away. Yikes! Marianne didn't have a phone and had to hot-foot it up to our house to spread the alarm.
It turned out to be a genuine mini-forest fire, accidentally set by the owners of the little segheria (sawmill) just across the creek. They had ignited a mountain of sawdust one afternoon and went home while it was still smouldering. All it took was a pleasant breeze to make the sparks fly.
The whole village was soon awakened by Todi's Vigili del Fuoco. The sirens and horns on their two trucks plus the complementary noise of several varieties of police vehicles drove everyone from their beds to the road beside the sawmill. Post-city cowards that we were, Isaac and I just poured a brandy and watched from our terrazzo.
The fire was serious enough to warrant the presence of a fire truck for the next 24 hours and to raise the insurance premiums of the sawmill proprietors by 100%. Marianne and her trees eventually regained their composure and La Casella suffered no damage at all, but it sure put the village on notice. Ever since that occasion we've all watched out for each other and never, ever leave a fire before we're sure it's out.
Now it's 6:10 and I don't see a single puff of smoke next door. Just in case, though, I'm going to call my neighbors who will then double-check the situation. Can't be too careful in a dry autumn.