The Pony had lunch plans yesterday. He left home at 2:00, while I was taking the Chex Mix out of the oven, and finishing a package-wrapping. I was on my way out the kitchen door when Hick came in the front door.
"You might see a fire truck on your way to town."
"And... "
"I'm just sayin', don't be surprised. You can probably still get by. It wasn't there yet when I came through."
"Are you telling me I should go the other way? I don't understand."
"No. It's by Footy's."
"Um... I don't know who that is. So I have no idea where you're talking about. I'll just go the other way."
"You can't. It's on our gravel road. At the top of the hill, where the first road branches off."
"Why didn't you just SAY that? Now I know where you're talking about."
"The Pony saw the fire. He called me to say there was smoke all over, and a line of flames on the ground. I told him I'd check it out, and started home. By the time I got there, the flames were going crazy. I ran up to the Footy's house, and started pounding on the door. Nobody came out. I saw that the flames had burned up a little trailer, and they was headed toward the garage. That's when I called 911."
I got on the Facebook and told everybody who lives out here. Footy must have been on the phone with his mom. He seen it, and put on there, 'I put the fire out!' He'd been burning trash."
"Great. Now if he doesn't have a fire tag, he'll have to pay. He'll be mad at you. AND he's admitted that he was burning trash!"
"Well, that's too bad. The fire was getting to the woods."
We know all about that. OUR neighbor, Copper Jack's human family, set the woods on fire back when The Pony was an infant. The teenage daughter was burning the trash, in a barrel, and some blew out and DID catch the woods on fire. While waiting for the fire department, her dad was out digging a fire break ditch, and hosing down our (CEDAR SIDING) garage with his garden hose. Hick had to rush home from the bowling alley to deal with it. The fire got put out by the volunteer fire department. As far as I know, the neighbors had a fire tag. They weren't mad at us.
Anyhoo... as I left for town, there WAS a fire engine blocking most of the road, but T-Hoe squeezed around. The smoke was thick. The house is way up the road. So I guess the fire was being fought in the woods at that time.
When The Pony returned home before I did, he said there was also a Missouri Conservation Department truck parked in the way. They were all gone when I went past. The wind was so strong today, most of the smoke was gone. Just a faint hickory smoke smell. 59 degrees, dry and windy, sun blazing. Not our typical Christmas week!
Perhaps the biggest headline would be: Pony Now Cares About Helping People!
He's still in limbo, that Pony. Not yet made the jump from student to adult. So his first thought was to report the emergency to Hick. Good thing he did! And Hick the Do-Gooder rushed to save possible inhabitants. Even if it was by posting the fire on Facebook, when his door-pounding failed.
Meanwhile, I was oblivious to the drama, being an hour off my schedule with the Chex Mix preparations. Thank goodness we are upwind from that location, and only one house was in the "line of fire," and was saved.
Glad everyone escaped danger.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is A-OK, but the firestarter might be a bit embarrassed.
DeleteThank goodness everything is okay.
ReplyDeleteAll parties were in the right place at the right time. No coincidences.
DeleteWhen I lived in California in the fifties, everyone burned their trash in backyard incinerators...I wonder why their was a smog problem.
ReplyDeleteIncinerators! Around here, each family had a rusty trash barrel out in the backyard, for incineratory purposes.
DeleteNow we have trash companies that eat up gasoline in their big trucks belching exhaust fumes, to bury garbage in landfills that may or may not leak toxic waste into the groundwater. Or send it by rail or highway to the coasts, to be hauled out into the ocean to endanger animal and plant life.
Pick your poison. Not everything is recyclable.
59 degrees is when I'd be zipping up the hoodie and turning on the heater!
ReplyDeleteThank goodness the drama played out favourably, as in no one hurt and no houses burned down. There's hope for The Pony yet :)
The heater days are on the way! Forecast says much colder here on Christmas day.
DeleteI am shocked that The Pony took the initiative to call Hick to investigate. He's usually not one to get involved.
I miss backyard incinerators. When they were made 'against the law' most people I know simply had a weekend barbecue and burned the trash to cook the sausages. I can't even begin to imagine the chaos and fire hazard of having a backyard incinerator here in these blocks of flats, or any of the highrise public housing lots scattered around the cities.
ReplyDeleteWith our trash barrels, most people had the common sense not to let kids do the burning, and to keep out dangerous items such as aerosol cans (remember AquaNet hairspray?), and to stand by to stomp out burning embers if any flaming paper wafted out of the barrel.
DeleteThese days, not many people have common sense. Even Hick had a lapse one year, when he set the front field on fire (on purpose!) to clear out the undergrowth and make the grass healthier (he said).
It was a wild scene, with mice and cats (we had 5 then) tearing around all willy-nilly, and the burning edge creeping towards the house. At least the flames were low, and stopped at Hick's rock garden and brick sidewalk.