That fire story reminded me of a event I witnessed in the early '70s.
A fire started soon after dawn at the edge of the little town I grew up near. Seems a lady was burning her trash in a burn barrel. It had a hole in it. Well the fire got out into a swampy area and jumped across the dry cattails so no one could get to it to put it out.
The wind was blowing briskly in our direction that day. We noticed the smoke all day and were getting reports of the fire's progress. We heard the sirens that morning and figured the fire department and nearby residents would soon have it out, but as the day went on the fire was getting closer and still no report of the fire department's progress. About 4:00 pm a neighbor dropped in and said the fire had jumped the road and there was just one more open field between it and our farm. It had already burned for over a mile and a half through the swamp, forests and fields. But there was no sign of any fire fighters anywhere.
We could now see the fire. Unlike the swamp and forests, it was racing across that open field. (It was mid-March and the grass had a lot of winter-kill dead tops.) All I could think of was our farm, house and barns are next. I've never seen my dad handle a situation so calmly. He had my older brother hook up our International MD (diesel) to a scalloped wheeled disk an go and try to put out the fire. I went along to open the gate. I rode on the loader frame as we disked that fire out lickedy-split. The flames were licking the bottoms of my soles as we went. It was a fast and beautiful operation.
After we put everything away and were in the front yard reflecting on all of it we all hear weeeeoooowww, weeeeoooowww , weeeeoooowww getting closer all the time. It was the fire department...just in time?
We thought it funny them not doing anything to tackle that fire all day, then showing up after it was put out. But nothing prepared me for what we saw the next morning. Next to that swampy area is a small one-lane gravel road, partially blocking the road was a fire truck. Its nose (and front wheels) was sticking up in air some and its back end was sunk in the mud. Why anyone would try to turn around there was mind boggling. There was a fence against the road on one side and a drop off into the swamp on the other - along with some very good turn around spots within 200' in each direction and in clear sight.
Later reports had it the first department showed up that morning and immediately got hung up. Then the second department showed up and spent most of the day trying to get the first one's truck unstuck. By the time they gave up and went to put out the fire the day was mostly over, no one did any fire fighting, and the fire was put out by nonprofessionals.
Every time I think about this I can't help but think of the Keystone Cops.
were in danger. The volunteer firemen showed up with the only fire truck the little town had, I opened a gate in the fence so they could go in and they barely got the fire truck through the gate when it hit some soft sand and killed the engine. They could not get it restarted, so I passed out tow sacks (also known as burlap bags) which we dipped in the cows' water trough and we all fought fire with wet tow sacks to save the house, barn, AND the fire truck. And after the fire truck was no longer needed, it started easily.:laughing:
