Everyone makes jokes about rural fire departments, like the one about how ‘the old boys go by and polish the red truck every Saturday night, and polish off a few six packs, too.’ Or, ‘they’ve never lost a concrete foundation yet…’ But when it comes down to push and shove over fires, I hope you have as good a rural fire department as I do.
The night before Christmas Eve, we came home at about eleven at night. There was a warm spell that proceeded the deep freeze. The weathermen on TV were saying things were going to get cold with snow on Christmas Eve. In fact, we moved the family gathering up several hours, but that was the next day.
I had always taken the ashes out of my fireplace insert and put the pail on the concrete porch away from all flammables for two days, before dumping them on the hillside. Because it was a nice evening, I decided I’d dump them, say at a day and a half, so I could take the bucket in and empty the fireplace in the morning and be ready for the storm coming. Feeling no heat on the bucket, and seeing no sparks when I tossed the ashes, I carried the heavy duty pail back, and went on to bed.
I woke up that morning at about 2 o’clock, and went downstairs to put some wood in the rig. The west and northwest side of my house is almost all ceiling to floor glass windows. When I glanced out those windows I saw a rosy glow. There sure was no rosy glow in the fireplace like that. What was happening? Then I looked again and saw I had a brush and leaf fire waist high all around my house. That will check your heart, trust me.
“Where did that come from?” I asked no one. The fire looked real serious ‘cause I have a 12-foot wide wooden deck all around those two sides of the house that would make prime fuel. I rushed upstairs and woke my wife. “The woods are on fire!” She looked outside and agreed. “What can we do?”
“Call 911,” she said. I did that, and got the person answering the phone, and gave her all the information. I wanted to be outside with my garden hose, but thank goodness the fire didn’t look any more threatening than it had when I first saw it. So I went out and appraised the situation.
The blaze in front of the house was confined to the road going down to the lake, and not coming toward the house. The line circling around was across the road too, and it was consuming the piles of limbs we discarded after the ice storm. That was not too important, in fact I appreciated what it was doing by reducing the dead wood.
Where should I start? Then I heard the fire trucks, and I knew then I could wait on them. Another thing, there was very little wind or I might have lost a good size storage building and the house as well. But I guess the good Lord smiled on me, and was I grateful.
It didn’t take the hard working fire department any time at all to put the fire out. They had a tanker truck with water pump, and 50 feet of hose to douse water on the fire. Incidentally, that ton truck came to their fire department through a program that Ozarks Electric Coop has to help rural fire departments when they dispose of used vehicles.
After everything was out, the firefighters took a blower and a sprayer to the now extinguished fire, to make sure not one live coal existed anywhere. Gary Hull laughed, “We don’t like to have to come back after we get back in bed, to come fight the same old fire all over again.”
I’ve known Knob Hill/Sonora’s Fire Captain, Gary Hull, since he was boy. We discussed the cause of my fire. Obviously it was the product of a spark left in the ashes, plus the humidity was low and the leaves and fuel were dry. But, being minus the wind that evening saved my place from going up in flames. So, I’ll be much more respectful of how I discard my ashes from here on, and you do the same.
A fire alarm would never have warned me about the approaching flames before things were seriously burning on my house and buildings if I had not woken up. I’m counting my blessings, and I’m grateful I have a great volunteer fire department.
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting www.ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ or call 1-866-532-1960.
