Favorable winds have helped home run hitters at Halls Ferry Park for years. They might also have saved it from catastrophe.

Last week, vandals started a grass fire near the park’s Babe Ruth field that scorched two nearby hillsides and the outfield. However, a quick response by the Vicksburg Fire Department and a breeze that kept the fire away from other fields prevented major damage.

“It just cooked the grass a little bit. We were lucky with the wind. If it had been out of the north it would have burned those houses next to the park,” Vicksburg Parks and Recreation director Joseph Graves said.

Two juveniles were arrested on Nov. 28 after starting the fire near some old telephone poles stored at the bottom of a hill between Halls Ferry Park and the Bazinsky Field parking lot.

The fire burned the hillside between the Babe Ruth field — the largest of six baseball fields at Halls Ferry Park, and located at the far end of the facility’s parking lot — and Bazinsky Field. It also burned grass on a hill between the Babe Ruth field and the park’s tennis courts. Singed grass stopped at the edge of the courts’ concrete base.

The worst damage appeared to be on the Babe Ruth field itself, where the fire burned around the infield dirt and left the entire outfield looking like an asphalt parking lot. The dirt appeared to serve as a fire break, however. The infield grass was untouched.

A wood dugout and a wind screen on the outfield fence were not damaged, although all of the grass around both was blackened.

Graves said the damage was just cosmetic, and that the fire should actually help the field look better next spring. No facilities will need to be rebuilt.

“Luckily it just burnt off the top of the grass. It’ll actually help the grass because it burnt off all of that weed seed,” Graves said. “When that Bermuda (grass) comes in, it’s going to look good.”

Graves added praise for the quick response from firemen stationed at the park.

“The fire department got over there as soon as they saw smoke,” Graves said. “I appreciate the firemen for doing what they do.”