Yet another fire.

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11C1P

Yellow Jacket
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Luckily this one was small and only some dead branches got burnt. I was watching the local news when my son said there was something going on in the backyard with sparks and flame. I went out and saw a branch had fallen off a tree and was sparking and burning. I suspected it would probably be nothing, but as it has been drier the last week or two and the wind was starting to pick up, I didn't want to wait for it to actually become something before I made the call. The fire dept was here within 10 minutes, maybe closer to 5, any way they said they couldn't do anything till the power guy shows up. After watching it flare up, die down, several times it finally fell off after about 1/2 an hour after they showed up, and about 10 minutes after that the power guy shows up, looks at the line and says it's all good. Better than most of the fires I've been in.

Just under 2 years ago it was a garage fire, that while only doing minor damage to the structure, 95% of the stuff inside was trashed either from fire, them fighting the fire, water damage or smoke damage. Then when I was a C.O. I was working in the admin. segregation unit at night when a bonehead started a big fire in his cell, I got pretty good smoke damage to my lungs, but was mostly better in a few days. The first guy that came down the tier after I called the emergency was also a volunteer fire fighter and he told me afterward that as he was putting on the scott air pack he was wondering how far in he would find my body, and that when he saw me still standing he thought I was an inmate out of the cell (the smoke was that thick) Then when I was working for the feds a few years later, once again I had an inmate start a fire that I was able to get out within a few minutes, but there was still quite a bit of smoke. Both of these guys were nut cases, the first guy ended up committing suicide while on a transport to the nut house, and the 2nd guy assaulted a staff officer quite badly in the same unit he started the fire in, and well that's a whole nother story.

The 2 most traumatic fires for me though were when I was a kid. The 1st when I was about 3 or 4 years old, we were living in a trailer house in the middle of the north Minn. prairie and it was winter time, My room was actually a drafty add on to the back door, so I had a small space heater in it. Some point in the night I got down on the floor to lay closer to the heater and then woke up with my blanket on fire. Some minor burns to my legs but ok otherwise. Then a couple years later at the end of my 1st grade year I got pulled out of class and my dads cousin picked me up and took me to my still smoldering house, the same one that I got my legs burned up in. Obviously since I wasn't in the fire I was ok physically, but We lost almost everything. My dad and I had a stamp and coin collection that was gone, and maybe worst of all for a kid, I lost most of my toys except for some tonka's that were in the sandbox, which might be one of the reasons I still love tonka's!

That's just a few of the more eventful fires I was in, so I don't know why fire seems to follow me around, but I hope I am finally done with them! :judge:
 
A couple of years ago, we had a really windy day. Very strong wind gusts and strong swirling winds.

My across the street neighbors left (to go eat dinner I learned later) and left their garage door closed only 80% or so - leaving a small open gap at the bottom as most folks do around here in the summer time because otherwise the garages become ovens.

Anyway, they also had a TV in their garage and used it as a party room on the weekends to watch football and smoke cigarettes. I guess they didn't smoke in the house, just the garage.

5 minutes after they left the drive way, we see flames in their garage. We called 911 and the fire dept. got here about 15 minutes later (felt like an hour!). By the time they started putting the fire out, we were hearing huge explosions from inside the garage (propane tanks for their grill, not sure what else) and the whole garage was on fire. They managed to put out the fire before it had crossed the breezeway and burned down their house, but even so, there was smoke damage inside the house.

A fireman at the scene confided to me that he was 99% sure the swirling winds had ignited some cigarettes the neighbors had failed to put out properly before they left. But the fire dept. marked it as an electrical fire so they would be able to collect insurance.
 
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