The fire, which charred roughly a seven-foot patch of lawn in the cemetery’s Section E, was quickly doused by park rangers, and no one was hurt, police spokesman John Balian said.

“We just saw all these flames,” cemetery visitor Lisa Burks of Burbank said Wednesday. “But the park rangers were on the spot and they had the water hoses in the back of their car, so they were all over it.”

The incident raised concerns at City Hall over danger and liability. While incense-lighting is a tradition for Orthodox Christians and Catholics – it represents the sweet prayers rising up to God – city officials decided it posed too high a fire risk given the troubled cemetery’s neglected state.

“We obviously needed to weigh all aspects of what’s transpiring at the site, including people who wish to light the incense and the dry conditions at the site,” city of Glendale spokesman Ritch Wells said. “This decision was based on health and safety issues.”

The 121-year-old cemetery slipped into disrepair after state officials chained its wrought-iron gates in June while owner Marsha Howard was investigated for financial mismanagement and mishandling thousands of remains.

With the water turned off, scattered patches of tinder-dry lawn and brush covered the 25-acre cemetery in just two months.

“I knew something was going to happen,” Burks said. “It’s so incredibly dry there. (The lawn) is like straw.”

Though criminal charges were dropped, Howard’s business license is under state review. Also, both she and operator Moshe Goldsman are defendants in a civil lawsuit.