Clark County Councilor Julie Olson said that for more than a decade she’s left personal fireworks out of her Fourth of July holidays. But this year, it appears a firework found its way to her.

At about 4 a.m. on July 5, Olson said that she was awakened by a neighbor frantically ringing her doorbell yelling, “You’ve got a fire! You’ve got a fire!” Olson said she grabbed her shoes and phone and hurried outside, where she saw a fire had engulfed the south side of her house.

“It was freaking scary,” said Olson, who lives outside of Ridgefield. “It was something I didn’t think I’d have to deal with it.”

She and her neighbor grabbed her hose and tried to keep the fire at bay until firefighters arrived. According to Clark County Deputy Fire Marshal Dan Young, the fire was extinguished at 4:20 a.m. While no one was hurt and the fire didn’t get inside, it melted away much of the vinyl siding, leaving the home’s wooden panel exposed and the hedge of arborvitaes burnt to a crisp. Olson estimated the fire caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage.

According to Young, a report on the incident concluded that the fire was likely caused by a firework that had been lodged in the arborvitaes and smoldered into the blaze. Young said that no one was cited and it only took one fire engine to extinguish it.