Thursday, March 27, 2014

fire!


One of the elementals of nature. Powerful. Consuming. Awesome.

Last Tuesday we got to witness, due to the magic of far seeing, commonly referred to as 'TV', the destruction by fire of a 550 unit, 5 story luxury apartment complex that was under construction. It was consumed in about an hour and a half.

A giant column of black smoke could be seen from the city house. The location of the fire, while not one of my trails (I use a different artery one light down), is definitely in my stomping grounds when I am residing in the city.









all images from here:  http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=9479417

It reminded me, in a very small way, of the fires in the beach community where my parents had a house when I was growing up. Those timber houses on stilts would go up and be consumed in 30 minutes due to the dry wood of their construction and the winds off the Gulf. It was all over but the cryin' by the time the volunteer fire department would get there.

I saw more than one of those little houses go up.

And then there was the Brindsmaid fire when I was growing up. The Brindsmaids lived, not next door, but the next house down. Which is deceiving since this was not a regular 50' x 100' lot neighborhood. Lots were measured in acres. We had only one acre but our neighbors had more I think. Anyway, there were three houses on our side of the private road and we were on the corner and the Brindsmaid's were at the dead end.

One night about 10 PM, in a way I don't recall, if it was sirens or a phone call, we ran out to see the Brindsmaid's two story house engulfed in flames. It was a three alarm fire. In my memory, the flames are reaching skyward and the black smoke invisible in the night. Fortunately, they weren't home, having gone out to dinner.

I wrote this Tuesday night. Yesterday, Wednesday, there was another fire, same time of day, only this one was closer, 4 blocks N and about 8 blocks E. One two story wing of a large church burned but the fire department put it out before it could spread. Same time of day.

edit:  the authorities don't think the two fires are connected.  No word on how they apartment building caught but they think the church was arson.





10 comments:

  1. that was HUGE! i can only express gratitude that it was still under construction and not occupied yet (hopefully). still...

    i am hoping 2 fires in a close area in 2 days does not mean an arsonist.

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  2. I feel sorry for the construction workers. All that effort up in flames.

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  3. Do you think that someone is setting these fires?

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  4. The fire and an heroic rescue made our TV. A worker lowered himself them dropped to a balcony below, where a hook was able to get him. As it swung back the entire side of the building fell.
    I hope these are not arson.

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  5. Fire is a very scary thing to live through. Hope I never have to go through that again ever. Seeing a news report like this just sends shivers down my spine. Oma Linda

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  6. Wow. That is terrifying. Arson? A fire that big could spread really fast to the surrounding city. Egads. And in an hour and a half.

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  7. The authorities don't think the two fires are connected. No word as to how each of them started.

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  8. Regardless of how they started, how petrifying. Living in a high rise I occasionally think about how to respond if there should be a fire and there is really nothing you can do except head for the stairway. Fortunately, our building is newer and mostly concrete. I wonder why this building went so fast. Perhaps they didn't have fire walls in place yet.

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  9. How utterly devastating and very unsettling. They must suspect arson.

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