(Story from Wave 3 News)

Fire officials believe a 23-acre wildfire near Summersville, KY started because a property owner was illegally burning trash.

According to the Summersville Volunteer Fire Department, the fire started Tuesday night in the 4900 block of Highway 566 in Green County. The fire quickly spread to more than 23 acres of land, causing evacuations of several nearby homes.

The fire was contained in two hours and extinguished in three and a half hours, with 13 agencies responding from Green County and surrounding counties.

Fire officials believe a nearby property owner was burning trash, and the embers from that trash fire spread to other nearby properties, sparking the wildfire. The county was under a burn ban at the time, so any burning would have been illegal.

No homes were damagied and no injuries were reported. The name of the property owner was not released, but the Division of Forestry could consider charges against him. Kentucky law suggests anything damaged off of the owner’s property could be the property owner's responsibility too, leaving open the potential for a restitution order.