A Training Fire

A Training Fire

I arrived well after the volunteer fire department had gotten there. I had a skills evaluation earlier that morning for a course I was taking, otherwise I would have been there earlier. They had been lighting fires and putting them out and relighting them again and again. They had a group of cadets that needed some practice with a real fire and a house owner that needed a house demolished.

They were packing up gear and trucks when I arrived. It was a niece day for a fire. I had not packed my camera when I had left home, having not thought about the training fire, as I had focused on my test anxiety. I took it all in and said hi all the way around and went the six miles home to get some lunch and my camera.

When I got back most of the breather gear had been packed in the pickup truck and the last of the cadets were finishing there training. The fire would start in earnest soon. Folks had gathered on the lawn: friends and family of the cadets, the regular volunteers, the local Red Cross Chapter, neighbors, and official and unofficial photographers. There would be a group photo in front of a fully engulfed house later.

The fellow with the hose was teasing the cadets with a shower?

The house had been stripped of its shingles to avoid burning them but this had left the house so wet from several days of rain that the house had been hard to light. The fire started slowly and was lit several times before the whole house began to burn. It would not burn fully until later, much later. As a whole, the mood was festive lacking the urgency of an unplanned fire.

When I left, the fire department had left a crew and truck behind to watch the fire. Some of the neighbors still sat out on lawn chairs to watch the remainder of the fire.