FWIS3

An unused business property near my house caught fire and essentially was gutted. No one was hurt I don't imagine and no other properties were involved. Aside from the copious amounts of smoke in the neighborhood, I knew about it because the power company de-energized the power at the site to allow the firefighters to get water onto the fire from above. That killed power to the whole neighborhood.

There were a lot of fire trucks - a fairly impressive response and a good example of why we need to pay taxes. But what struck me was how persistent this fire was. It's not a large building, as you can see from the photos. I walked over to see what was going on and it must have been a good half hour or hour after the fire started when I got there. I had been smelling smoke for quite a while. The fire people were in the process of dumping a lot of water on the building. A lot of water. There was a veritable river flowing down the street. Yet I still saw significant flames coming from the building roof. I'm thinking - wow, what the hell is in that building?

I went over this morning at about 4 AM and took a few photos. You can see all of them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49925617@N ... 814296086/


IMG_1161 by geonuc, on Flickr


IMG_1159 by geonuc, on Flickr


IMG_1169 by geonuc, on Flickr


DSC02803 by geonuc, on Flickr


DSC02796 by geonuc, on Flickr


DSC02793 by geonuc, on Flickr

Wow indeed.

Makes me think a year or two ago on how there was a guy who refused to pay his share to upkeep the fire department in town, and then everyone got upset when his house caught on fire and the fire dept let it burn down. You get what you pay for, and controlling fires is REALLY not a cheap or unskilled business.

I suspect that the word "Entitlement" came out once or twice during the ruckus....