A real barn burner!

May 28th, 2005

My alarm clock went off getting me ready to head for the barn burning. I got some breakfast and headed to the station. Clark, Carl, and a few others were there. Jim came down, so did Scott. We loaded up in a couple rigs and went about ten miles out of Colfax. We were going to burn down a barn that I always see and know I am close to Colfax. I did not want to see it go. So I took a lot of pictures of it before the fire.


Barn with Royal Blue Sky


Colfax Guys outside the Barn

Then it was started. From the outside I could see the flames working up the roof.


Fire going up Back Roof

I asked Carl if I could go to the door and get some pictures. He did not care. But when I turned around it was too late. The flames were already coming out the top of the barn, through an opening. It was too hot to go near it.


Too Hot to get Near Now

It was not long before it was fully involved. I started to take pictures as a couple crews manned the hosed and sprayed water on the wood. I am not sure why we were doing that, but I guess it was good practice for spraying water.


Fire Ball and Fire Streams

I was about fifty feet or so from the fire and it was so hot any exposed skin was getting hot. I took some more pics before Clark asked me to take over for him. I started to spray. I asked him to take some pictures with my camera. But after a minute or two my boots were getting really hot and burning the tops of my feet.

I kneeled down to try to protect them, but it was too late. I got relieved. I walked around this other barn where Clark was standing. I was going to get my camera. I saw one side of the barn was gone and I wanted to get a picture of it. You could see through it. It was really bright red and orange in there. It was really cool. After I walked around a rig to get to Clark, I asked him where the camera was. He said it was in the cab of one of the fire engines. He put it in there because the camera was getting so hot. However in the time it took me to walk around the engine the barn collapsed. So I missed my photo op and I missed the barn coming down.


The Barn is Gone

I took a few more pictures and helped to clean up. It got really muddy because of the water we were using. We went back to the station and loaded the engine with new hose and washed the mud off the hoses we used.

We stayed at the station for a while and played cards. Carl, Scott, Jim, and I were playing for about two hours. I ended up winning a few bucks. Then I headed to Lewiston for the Palouse Thunder football game. Janet had called and asked me to get her some PowerBall tickets. I stopped to get those. Then I went to Albertsons and got some lunch and chew. I got to the field and ate.

Then I made sure I had everyone’s name from the other team correct. I updated my text file. After the game started I found out all the number for the players were out of date. So I had everyone’s number wrong. I spent the rest of the first quarter trying to fix the numbers between plays. I did my best doing the announcing and running the music that I could under the circumstances. Jarrid and another guy did the stats, so I did not have to do that this week.

Walla Walla Stars pretty much dominated the game. One of their guys hit one thousand yards rushing on the season. We got blew out in the game. After the game I closed up the announcers booth and headed home. Tomorrow is boating!


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