At the golf course where I work, we had one of our stately Walnut trees struck by lightning one day while we were working, and during the strike, we discovered later, a black snake had apparently been at the base of the tree and was instantly charged and fried by the strike…so far the tree has not died and still stands at the edge of the fairway….

Last week was a busy week for area fire departments and ours especially…we now have a combination paid/volunteer fire department and we were called to assist Cuba Fire Dept with a building fire Saturday night. It came in as fully involved and people trapped on the roof,  and they requested our ladder truck..I started toward the station but the paid crew decided not to wait long and took off, so I turned around and headed up there in my truck instead. I dont run code when I do that, mainly respond to take a few pics, can leave when I want that way, but also have my gear in my truck and can assist the truck crew if needed. I arrived ahead of the Ladder truck by about ten minutes and found the building not to be fully involved. Had it been fully involved, one would have been able to see the glow of the fire from miles away on approach by the interstate, but that wasnt the case. There was heavy smoke coming off the roof and from windows on the first and second floors on the east side of the building, and crews had made a good interior knockdown and were trying to get to the seat of the fire and make a secondary search when I parked nearby. Our truck laddered the second floor and assisted with scene lighting and our truck crew placed a ground ladder to the roof of the porch in case interior crews had to make an escape fast. There were several departments on hand with equipment and manpower and so several firefighters including Sullivan`s, were able to rotate into the building and knock down the remaining fire. The only flames I saw were in an upstairs apartment window and only briefly. This is an old building, the original Cuba Hotel building near the railroad tracks and Cuba made a great stop on the fire.

Except for what is right around the corner, otherwise I love the fall season and the beautiful foliage that goes with it…gonna show you some reasons why I like it so much before I start packing and getting ready to go to Arkansas next week…

Was out photographing the fall foliage the other day after it finally stopped raining Thursday morning, and my pager activated and we were kicked out to a house fire a few miles north of where I was shooting the leaves. I jumped in my truck and took off down some side roads to get to where I the house was located. The county dispatcher gave our responding trucks different directions than the way I was headed, but due to my knowledge of backroads and delivery driving experience for many years, as well as knowing my fire district well, I knew my route would take me there well ahead of their response time. As I was driving down the roads, I looked in the direction of the call and saw a large plume of heavy black smoke, and called the county dispatcher to let them know as well. I arrived on the scene a few minutes later, the residence owner wasnt home, they were out furniture shopping I was told by a neighbor who called it in, and I called the county dispatcher back to let them know I was on scene and the double wide mobile home was eighty percent involved with heavy fire with no other buildings close. I asked him to get the rural electric coop en route due to a transformer close to the fire and wires very close to the fire as well, which were dripping and burning from the radiant heat. An ambulance crew arrived and right after that, the homeowners arrived and the wife collapsed at the entrance to the driveway and we had to assist her off to the side before the trucks arrived.

One of our deputy chiefs arrived a few minutes later and we held traffic until the local deputies arrived, and then a few minutes after that the fire trucks started rolling in. From the time I arrived to the time the trucks arrived was probably seven long minutes and the home was totally consumed by heavy fire leaving firefighters nothing to do except to douse the flames and hopefully retain something for the investigators to sift through to determine the cause of the fire. All photographs are copyrighted.