Dale's Ramblings

On the way home from an errand today I had to stop to let some fire trucks out of the fire station. After they had gone, through the lights went green and I continued on my way home. When I got to our street, I found a house was on fire and I decided to go home and get my camera. Then the fire truck I had waited for earlier arrived! I wonder what took them so long !

After going home and running up the road with the kids and my camera we watched the proceedings...


Turns out the owner had parked his hot garden tractor in his garage and that ignited the fire...

At that stage it was limited to the garage only..


The house was filling with smoke and the smoke alarms were chirping away...



The fire department went up and cut a hole in the garage roof...  This is known as 'venting' and used in limited situations to expell hot gases allowing use of stairwells, rescue of people and fast advance with hose lines.



this let the air flow nicely and soon there was a huge blaze...



Not much water was being put on the fire



there was lots of shouting and yelling


There was sporadic use of the fire hoses.  In my opinion venting this fire was not the best tactic and simply accelearted the fire.



Looks like the house is a complete loss.

I counted 10 fire department vehicles and two hoses. Plus about 4 Police cruisers, paramedics (nobody hurt) and the electricity company.