This is a story about my very very long Wednesday x_O Before I go any farther, you need to see a picture of our house so you know what went where and whatnot
- The black square is our house
- The yellow rectangle is our woodpile (4 feet high, 20 feet wide, 35 feet long ish)
- The green legth is the wooden fence
- The red rectangle is the burn area, all torched black, it got half our woodpile, lots of our fence, and a storage shed
- The white splotch is our slab of concrete for parking cars, my bedroom is on the far west (left) side, the tan squares north (up) of the burn area are other buildings, luckily, these werent burned, and the white patch in about the middle of the picture is a white car canopy that got partialy melted
- The dike (flood protection wall made of dirt) runs from the upper left hand corner to the end of the green line, you can sort of see it
That's pretty much all the landmarks you need to know about.
Ok, now, on with the story. *Takes deep breath*
The night before was like any other Tuesday night, stayed up til about 11 O'clock on the computor checking e-mails and such. I woke up in the middle of the night and heard an engine running and a dull light, so, i assumed it was my mother getting ready to go to the gym. She turns the outside light on so she can see, and she starts the car to warm it up, so i didn't think anything of it. But then I remembered drinking alot of water the night before, so i though it a good idea to relieve my bladder, so, i rolled over and I saw lots of flashing lights and people talking (well, yelling quietly). Then, i saw the orange glow of fire and a screen of smoke, then i looked at the clock and saw that it was 3 O'clock.
"s**t," I though. "I'll definantaly be the only one up in this house." Then I heard a knock on the door. Slowly I crawled out of bed in a manner that most people do when its 3 in the damn morning and put my shoes on, my $50 Converse >.O not the best of ideas, but they were the only shoes avalible at the time. So i went and answered the door, obviously, it was a firefighter, I'm not sure of what his position was, i think he might have been the inspector or something, but I digress. so he took me out to our woodpile and explained that there wasn't much they could do to stop it because it was what they call and "under burn". So instead of burning from one side to another, its burning on the ground level all undernieth our huge pile of wood and there really isn't a way to get to it other than dig and douse it there. So after he explained that, I went back into the house to get a flashlight and see the damage for myself. It burned about a 25 foot section of our fence, just about half of our wood was scortched black if not burnt to a crisp, and it took out a small storage shed. The FireFighters did what they could to douse the woodpile, but to no avail, so they started to pack up and leave. Then the fire inspector guy, Rick was his name, came back and knocked on the door, I had gone back in the house because there wasn't anything i could have done. So I answered the door and he told me that i need to get soem sprinkalers set on the pile to keep it controlled, and by this time, mom had woken up and started to get ready to go to the gym before she saw everything, so I set spriklers and she helped, we got 3 of them set on the fire, but it wasn't working. So Mom went and got Dad out of bed and we (Dad and I) traded sprinklers for nozzles so we could direct our water attacks. By this time, it was about 4:30, the FireFighters left about 3:45 - 4.
So there Dad and I were, soaking the crap out of a pile of wood gettign hit by the third sprinkler every 30 seconds (i got soaked to the bone while fighting a fire, figure that out.) By this time, Mom had given up on all thoughts about going to the gym, so at about 5 O'clock, she went and got Peter, my 19 year old brother, out of bed (terrible idea to wake him before 7:30) so he could help douse this burning mass of flames. So we were franticy spraying any sign of fire and getting pelted with thick, white clouds of heavy, hot smoke, and at about 6 O'clock, Mom got rid of the last sprinkler (good ridance in my opinion) and put a nozzle on it. So, eyes watering like a fountain, i sprayed for hours, until about 7 - 7:30, by this time, the sun had come up and Sarah, my 9 year old sister, had woken up. So It was 3 of us on hoses at a time, 1&1/2 of us pointing out fires and watching hotspots til about 8:15. Peter then got the idea that we needed to cut a line down the center of the woodpile so we could save some of our wood, we knew we couldnt save it all, but we needed to save some. So we went to get Jake, the youngest boy at age 13, out of bed because we needed all the hands we could get to move the wood to stop this fire. So, we (Peter and myself) guesstimated where the line of the fire would be, we were right on the money, but I'm jumping ahead. so, we started digging from the west side and dug east, throwing all the wood onto the fire, "we can't stop it, so use it to burn the rest of the bad wood," Dad said. "Makes sense," i thought as i dug from the east and headed west. at 9 O'clock, there was a sort of half line down the pile (you can see in the picture where the red line stops and the yellow box keeps going, thats the wood we saved, the stuff in the red box is ash now) and we were getting hungry, so Mom headed to BurgerKing and got us some Enormas Omlete Sandwiches, very yummy after fighting fires for 6 flinking hours >.O but I digress yet again. So me and Peter were digging towards eachother flinging wood onto the burning side with Jakes help, while Dad and Sarah sprayed the unburned wood so it wouldnt start on fire, Mom was on the dike spraying what was left of the fenceline so it didn't get out of hand on the south side, and thanks goodness for the breeaze that kicked up sometime and blew south kepping the smoke out of our faces. So at about 9:30 or so, me and peter had the line cut down the pile, one side not touched my flame, the other side scortched and burned, so we sprayed the area again and set a sprinkler (with low water pressure) on teh pile of good wood so as to keep it safe from flame and we shoved what wood was still scattered about onto the burning wood. By this time, it was about 10ish. Peter and Jake stayed outside to watch it for a few hours and everyone said i needed to go take a shower and a nap, so i went in the house and cleaned up, but decided not to take a nap just yet cuz it was almost my turn to watch the fire. Sure enough, at noon Peter had to go to work, so I was sent out, I stayed otu there watching it until about 2ish when I was ordered to take a nap because i was falling asleep while watching the fire. i woke up about 3 and went back out to watch it, til about 4, then I was so whiped out that i fell asleep until about 6:30 p.m.
..--~~The End~~--..
Please feel free to ask questions 3nodding
- The black square is our house
- The yellow rectangle is our woodpile (4 feet high, 20 feet wide, 35 feet long ish)
- The green legth is the wooden fence
- The red rectangle is the burn area, all torched black, it got half our woodpile, lots of our fence, and a storage shed
- The white splotch is our slab of concrete for parking cars, my bedroom is on the far west (left) side, the tan squares north (up) of the burn area are other buildings, luckily, these werent burned, and the white patch in about the middle of the picture is a white car canopy that got partialy melted
- The dike (flood protection wall made of dirt) runs from the upper left hand corner to the end of the green line, you can sort of see it
That's pretty much all the landmarks you need to know about.
Ok, now, on with the story. *Takes deep breath*
The night before was like any other Tuesday night, stayed up til about 11 O'clock on the computor checking e-mails and such. I woke up in the middle of the night and heard an engine running and a dull light, so, i assumed it was my mother getting ready to go to the gym. She turns the outside light on so she can see, and she starts the car to warm it up, so i didn't think anything of it. But then I remembered drinking alot of water the night before, so i though it a good idea to relieve my bladder, so, i rolled over and I saw lots of flashing lights and people talking (well, yelling quietly). Then, i saw the orange glow of fire and a screen of smoke, then i looked at the clock and saw that it was 3 O'clock.
"s**t," I though. "I'll definantaly be the only one up in this house." Then I heard a knock on the door. Slowly I crawled out of bed in a manner that most people do when its 3 in the damn morning and put my shoes on, my $50 Converse >.O not the best of ideas, but they were the only shoes avalible at the time. So i went and answered the door, obviously, it was a firefighter, I'm not sure of what his position was, i think he might have been the inspector or something, but I digress. so he took me out to our woodpile and explained that there wasn't much they could do to stop it because it was what they call and "under burn". So instead of burning from one side to another, its burning on the ground level all undernieth our huge pile of wood and there really isn't a way to get to it other than dig and douse it there. So after he explained that, I went back into the house to get a flashlight and see the damage for myself. It burned about a 25 foot section of our fence, just about half of our wood was scortched black if not burnt to a crisp, and it took out a small storage shed. The FireFighters did what they could to douse the woodpile, but to no avail, so they started to pack up and leave. Then the fire inspector guy, Rick was his name, came back and knocked on the door, I had gone back in the house because there wasn't anything i could have done. So I answered the door and he told me that i need to get soem sprinkalers set on the pile to keep it controlled, and by this time, mom had woken up and started to get ready to go to the gym before she saw everything, so I set spriklers and she helped, we got 3 of them set on the fire, but it wasn't working. So Mom went and got Dad out of bed and we (Dad and I) traded sprinklers for nozzles so we could direct our water attacks. By this time, it was about 4:30, the FireFighters left about 3:45 - 4.
So there Dad and I were, soaking the crap out of a pile of wood gettign hit by the third sprinkler every 30 seconds (i got soaked to the bone while fighting a fire, figure that out.) By this time, Mom had given up on all thoughts about going to the gym, so at about 5 O'clock, she went and got Peter, my 19 year old brother, out of bed (terrible idea to wake him before 7:30) so he could help douse this burning mass of flames. So we were franticy spraying any sign of fire and getting pelted with thick, white clouds of heavy, hot smoke, and at about 6 O'clock, Mom got rid of the last sprinkler (good ridance in my opinion) and put a nozzle on it. So, eyes watering like a fountain, i sprayed for hours, until about 7 - 7:30, by this time, the sun had come up and Sarah, my 9 year old sister, had woken up. So It was 3 of us on hoses at a time, 1&1/2 of us pointing out fires and watching hotspots til about 8:15. Peter then got the idea that we needed to cut a line down the center of the woodpile so we could save some of our wood, we knew we couldnt save it all, but we needed to save some. So we went to get Jake, the youngest boy at age 13, out of bed because we needed all the hands we could get to move the wood to stop this fire. So, we (Peter and myself) guesstimated where the line of the fire would be, we were right on the money, but I'm jumping ahead. so, we started digging from the west side and dug east, throwing all the wood onto the fire, "we can't stop it, so use it to burn the rest of the bad wood," Dad said. "Makes sense," i thought as i dug from the east and headed west. at 9 O'clock, there was a sort of half line down the pile (you can see in the picture where the red line stops and the yellow box keeps going, thats the wood we saved, the stuff in the red box is ash now) and we were getting hungry, so Mom headed to BurgerKing and got us some Enormas Omlete Sandwiches, very yummy after fighting fires for 6 flinking hours >.O but I digress yet again. So me and Peter were digging towards eachother flinging wood onto the burning side with Jakes help, while Dad and Sarah sprayed the unburned wood so it wouldnt start on fire, Mom was on the dike spraying what was left of the fenceline so it didn't get out of hand on the south side, and thanks goodness for the breeaze that kicked up sometime and blew south kepping the smoke out of our faces. So at about 9:30 or so, me and peter had the line cut down the pile, one side not touched my flame, the other side scortched and burned, so we sprayed the area again and set a sprinkler (with low water pressure) on teh pile of good wood so as to keep it safe from flame and we shoved what wood was still scattered about onto the burning wood. By this time, it was about 10ish. Peter and Jake stayed outside to watch it for a few hours and everyone said i needed to go take a shower and a nap, so i went in the house and cleaned up, but decided not to take a nap just yet cuz it was almost my turn to watch the fire. Sure enough, at noon Peter had to go to work, so I was sent out, I stayed otu there watching it until about 2ish when I was ordered to take a nap because i was falling asleep while watching the fire. i woke up about 3 and went back out to watch it, til about 4, then I was so whiped out that i fell asleep until about 6:30 p.m.
..--~~The End~~--..
Please feel free to ask questions 3nodding
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