BUSHES BURN OUTSIDE ROANOKE'S CITY HALL

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 15, 1993                   TAG: 9304150245
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Lon Wagner
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
BUSHES BURN OUTSIDE ROANOKE'S CITY HALL
In the middle of the afternoon Wednesday, in broad daylight, in the plaza right outside Roanoke's City Hall, three holly bushes mysteriously burned to the ground.
A fourth bush was partially scorched, but expected to survive. City firefighters put out the bush blaze before any other shrubbery was damaged.
The midday fire left Kevin Perala shaking his head. Perala is the city worker charged with maintaining the Lee Plaza garden.
"How the heck did that catch?" Perala wondered. "We were just over there cutting grass two minutes ago."
A man who passed by the smoldering patch of garden about 2 p.m. speculated that somebody tossed a burning cigarette under the bushes. Perala bent over, sifted some dirt through his fingers, and suggested that the plant bedding may not have been dry enough for a fire to catch that quickly.
"We just went by; we just made it around the block," he said. "It went up that quickly."
- LON WAGNER

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB