The mystery of the smoking mounds in the park

Yesterday, my wife and I spent time with her friend (I really need to find names for all of them), her daughter (Buffy's owner) and her daughter's friend. We spend a good deal of time in a nearby park, the same where I took picture of the crows. The girls went in the hidden narrow paths through the trees and shrubbery on the outskirt of the park. They were playing make belief games and imagining the paths were full of zombies or monsters. Or whatever else. Did I mention that I love these kids and their twisted imagination? They were particularly fascinated by some mounds made of dry twigs, dry grass and small bits of wood.

They came back to us saying that some smoke was getting off one of the mounds. We went to check with them and they had not lied or imagined it: If you were scruffling a bit of the hill there was smoke coming out and it did feel like there was some small fire burning in it.Now the mounds' presence itself is easy to explain; we could see some trees had been trimmed, some might even have been cut down entirely, so we can assume these were remains of some gardening done on the order of the town authorities. But why the smoke, that is something else entirely. I know that in Québec people often burn dead leaves and dry grass during Springtime and I have often smell here smoke in Springtime, that may come from such bonfires. This would make sense. Or it may also be some kid throwing a match at it, or something of the sort. Whatever the case, I really wonder about these smoking mounds.