Fires at two houses and a barn kept members of St. Tammany Fire District 9 in Bush on their toes this week.

Two of them took place on Wednesday. The first, a pre-dawn blaze at a home on Crump Road, started about 5:45 a.m., and was fully involved by the time firefighters arrived just three minutes later.

Chief Scott Brewer said no one was home when the 2,000 square-foot home burned, and there were no injuries. Mutual aid arrived in the form of a tanker from Fire District 7 in Talisheek and an engine from Fire District 10, but the fire burned quickly, and the house was declared a complete loss. Later that day, flames engulfed a two-story log cabin at 79028 A. Slade Road. Brewer said it started around 4:25 p.m. when the fireplace stovepipe separated, and allowed ashes to fall down between the walls.

“It lit up the exterior wall on the second floor,” said Brewer. “The guys did an excellent job containing it to that wall, so there’s some smoke and water damage, but that’s about it.”

There were no injuries in the afternoon fire either. An earlier barn fire on Elliot Road on Sunday was a complete loss, with no injuries reported.

Brewer said foul play is not suspected in any of the cases, but the chief is scratching his head over the sudden frequency of the incidents. He said his department normally gets only two or three structure fires over the course of a year, so to get three in less than a week is an anomaly.

He suggested the extreme shifts in weather might be a factor.

“With the cold weather coming and going so quickly, people need to be careful of heating,” he said. “Check your stovepipes, make sure the chimney is clean and even the dryer vent; people don’t realize that can ignite, too.”