You might remember back in early December that our neighbors to the back tore down an old sagging shed they had on their property. Read about it here if you missed it.
It ended up in a pile. One blog reader commented saying that they hoped the neighbors were going to do something with the pile…well they did!
This week they had the fire department come and burn the pile.
You can see there is a pole right next to the pile. That’s an electric pole and in order for the pile to burn and not the pole, the firemen needed to be on scene to keep the pole watered down.
They light the fire….
and before long they had it burning pretty good. See?
Some might think this is a joke for the firemen to be spending time burning this simple pile but it’s not. We have several new guys on the department that have not been involved in fighting a live active fire. They all need experience learning to operate the pumper truck…they need experience learning how to hook the tanker to the pumper. They need to learn to work together.
The firemen also do these jobs to be active in community relations. Burning this keeps the town looking nice and it’s great for community members to see them out and practicing. Feeling confident in our firemen is important.
There’s a pile still left…I’m betting the neighbors will likely clean that away once the snow is gone and spring is here for sure.
When they do, the view I have to the river from my upstairs sewing room will be so much nicer. I love seeing improvements in our little town.
For those of you who live in rural America who have an old building you would like gone, contact your local fire department. Each state and unit has their own policy in how they handle situations like this. Many don’t charge or charge a small amount. By offering your building, you can give fire department volunteers much needed training which in turn keeps your community safe.
My father was a volunteer firefighter for almost 50 years! Our little town still does burn abandoned buildings for practice too. Glad your view is improving.
Our local fire department burned a huge pile of brush for us. We let them use our field for parking for their car show across the road. We try to support our rural fire department anyway we can- fund raisers such as breakfast, BBQs , sub sales etc.
I live in a huge city with fire dept buildings all over. I have a huge new one just down the block from me. They dont need more practice unfortunately. We had four+ fires just last night. They are trying to get people to use smoke detectors and too often there are no working detectors in major fires and we continue to lose people to fire mostly due to that reason. Great that your community works together.
I once donated a car to my county fire and rescue to use for training.
What a great idea. A win for everyone.
S’mores, anyone? Love that they get the training they need and you get the eyesore gone (or mostly gone)!
We had the local Firemen burn our house before building the new house 19 years ago. Two new men got practice and the new chemical they tried out was successful at keeping the new garage and all our stuff safe! And the old house was gone- flashover in less than 10 minutes! Win, win, win!
Last Thursday night downtown Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, experienced it’s biggest fire in nearly a century. An apartment building directly across the street from my daughter’s office building burned, and a construction crane collapsed from the heat. Miraculously, there were no fatalities and only a few minor injuries. I’m sure practice had a lot to do with this outcome.