FIRE!

We had a little excitement here at the Aerie this morning. After clearing the snow from the driveway, Terry went down to the post office for the mail. While she was gone, I stepped out on the deck for some air and saw smoke rising from behind one of the houses a short distance down in the valley. I didn’t think much of it assuming someone was either burning trash or they had a smoky fire in the fireplace. Then I heard the fire sirens sound.

When Terry returned, I was emptying the cat litter when she called to look down the hill. The damn house was on fire! There were a couple of pick-ups in the yard but no fire trucks yet. And the house was pretty well engulfed in flames. The fire trucks eventually showed up but by then there wasn’t a whole lot they could do.



From the time I saw the smoke and heard the sirens to the time the fire trucks pulled up was only about 20 minutes. Not a bad response time for a volunteer organization but way too much time to save the structure. They did pour water on it in what I assume was an attempt to save enough for an investigator to determine the cause of the blaze but that’s about all they could do.

As I write this, about an hour and a half after the first flames were spotted, there are two fire trucks still at the scene and the building is a steaming pile of debris. One or two of the first floor walls are standing but nothing else.

This was an older stick-built structure and it must have been tinder dry. It was really amazing to see how quickly the building was engulfed. I hope and pray that there was no one trapped inside. From watching the actions of the firemen I assume it was a simple structural fire. They certainly were not acting like there might be a threat to human life. I expect we'll learn more when we check the news and/or go for the mail tomorrow.