OLYMPIA (AP) — Washington state transportation officials say people throwing cigarette butts out their car windows are starting brush fires nearly every day.

Department of Transportation spokeswoman Claudia Bingham Baker says another brush fire briefly disrupted rush hour traffic on Interstate 5 near Lacey on Thursday afternoon. It was put out in about a half hour with no real damage.

That is a better result than other recent fires that disrupted traffic for hours or burned down buildings near roadways, including a cigarette-caused fire that burned a storage center in Puyallup last week.

Baker says these small fires are happening all the time, across the state, especially because this year is drier than is usual for the season.

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