A 4-year-old child playing with matches sparked a fire Sunday afternoon that burned down a shed and a trailer home on County Road F.5 south of Cortez.

"The 4-year-old was playing with matches and started a shed on fire on the south side of the structure. The fire then jumped to the trailer and burned it down," said Detective Kalvin Boggs of the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office. "Actually, it didn’t burn the trailer all the way to the ground, per se, but it did do some severe damage."

Boggs said that he was not sure how the child got hold of the matches.

The Cortez Fire Department and the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office fire investigator responded to the blaze on County Road F.5 at approximately 3:42 p.m.

Cortez Fire Chief Frank Cavaliere said that it took the fire department about 10 minutes to knock down the blaze but added that the crew stayed for another half hour to 45 minutes checking for hot spots.

Boggs said that nobody was injured during the fire; however, the family — a mother and two children — did have to be relocated.