A Garden Variety: Frost and Fire

It was COLD this morning at 8:00 AM! The frost on the window kept flowering back all over the glass every time Larry washed it away. In the trees and weeds next to the old house, everything was white frosted and crisp - including my toes. When we arrived at the burn site, the house was silent and showed no activity. It was sort of cute and I wondered if it was an old homestead. I was told that the house was so old all the insulation in it was made of sawdust. That would burn well! Gradually it looked like the sun started steaming off the frost from the roof.

It began billowing smoke in an obvious way as the firefighters gathered for practice near the entrance.

Crystal began gearing up for her turn in the house, hunting down the fire. She's the girl in this video, getting saddled in her equipment.

And here below, she's ready to go in the fire with Big Ted (as opposed to his son Little Ted who is really about the same size! LOL!). She waves at us, gets a hug and appears to respond with a good shove. Ah well.

Then, back out again after a successful trip (she succeeded in finding the fire), Big Ted smiling and Crystal still behind the mask.

Now that the training was all done, they torched the garage. An amazing sight for me, the uninitiated!

Like any good pyrotechnic show, the next act began as the first was dying down. The garage was gone and the house was going.

Dark smoke began billowing from the house.

It filled the sky, drawing road traffic from a couple of counties and bringing gawkers up and down the road. (Well. I was a gawker too. LOL! But I was supposed to be there! Heh.) Actually no one minded the uninvited watchers. They didn't endanger anyone because it was too hot by then to get close enough to the fire to be in danger.

Fire writhed through the doors and windows exploding the glass as it consumed the wood.

On the other side of the house, the firefighters were spraying all the nursery buildings with foam so they wouldn't burn.

At times they sprayed the foam over the house too, always keeping the burn under control. Soon most of the roof was flaming and smoke was going up the chimney as if the homestead family were still there, warming the cold autumn morning with the fireplace.

The house was quickly consumed and you could see fantastic images in the raging fire.