Late into the evening hours of Christmas night, I was working on editing up some photos when I heard Sullivan Fire Department kicked out for a tractor trailer fire on EB I-44 at the 225 mile marker. I quickly dressed, then Onyx and I headed for the truck, camera and portable scanner in hand. Washco advised the tractor was fully involved, and said they had other reports that it might be at the 227 mile marker…so I figured the glow of the fully involved truck would provide a good view from the West Overpass and give me a better idea of which way to go to photograph it and stay out of the way of fire trucks…I met Pumper 854 as I passed Jack in the Box Restaurant about the same time as Washco advised the fire crew that the truck was indeed on fire east of town and Highway Patrol was on scene, confirming the tractor trailer fully involved with a possible load of magnesium. Pumper 854 headed east on I-44 and I took the North Service Road instead…I pulled up and parked on the side of the Service Road even with the truck on fire, arriving right behind the fire crews. I crossed the median and climbed to the top of the embankment to the shoulder of westbound lanes, discovering traffic in both directions, while light, was all stopped, so my first photo shows Firefighter Jimmy Smythe, who was driving and engineering 854, stretching an attack line from the truck, for the firefighters who were busy packing up….the tractor was definitely heavily involved in fire and the front tires of the trailer had also caught fire by now….

…the attack crew consisting of Gary Midgyett, Nick White, and Trevor Woods, made sure their gear and air tanks were working well and then began to attack the fire….they were using foam since they were still not sure what hazards they were facing and it appeared the fire may have been fed by diesel fuel, which as it turned out, was feeding the fire after the tanks ruptured…needless to say, they had their hands full….

I would imagine by now they were probably wondering if the foam was having any effect on the fire, it was definitely burning hotter than a normal truck fire would burn…from my point of view tho, they were definitely having an effect on knocking down the fire…

…and four minutes after I snapped this photo above, they had the fire completely knocked down….

…and not much of the cab of that truck left either….

…Jimmy opened the trailer doors a few minutes later and released the smoke built up inside it, luckily it was determined the truck was not carrying any magnesium or any other haz mat. Needless to say, the tractor was a complete loss and the trailer did sustain some damage. Eastbound lanes remained closed for a few minutes and traffic was diverted on to the service roads at Sullivan`s East Overpass. At the same time crews were battling this fire, a serious traffic accident occurred on Springbluff Road in the area of the bad curves just north of the intersection of North and South Road. A pickup truck struck a tree and there were reports of multiple injuries…I was not able to get out to photograph that one due to road conditions. Sullivan was assisted by Bourbon and St Clair firefighters at that location. 

I didn`t go to this fire, heard Cuba Fire Department dispatched to assist Rolla Fire Department, and found several photos of it on the Rolla Daily News, some taken by the newspaper staff and some by students at UMR. From my understanding, the Rolla Fire Department was dispatched to the call as a HVAC unit fire, this is what it looked like on their arrival…

The building involved was Emerson Hall, an Electrical and Computer Engineering Building, and Rolla arrived on scene with aerial truck, a ladder, and immediately began attacking the fire with it….

…soon after their second aerial truck arrived, this one a platform, and they put it into hydraulic operations as well…

I have never seen an HVAC unit burn like that on a building rooftop, but I guess anything is possible these days…kudos to the Rolla Fire Department and other departments who assisted them that day, as I heard they kept the fire contained to the rooftop and no students were injured. Per officials at UMR, ” Rolla Fire Chief Ron Smith said fire investigators believe the point of origin for the fire was near a circuit junction box that powered an electric motor attached to the cooling station on the roof of Emerson Hall. The cooling station caught fire early afternoon on Thursday, Dec. 8. Smith also stated no one was injured at this fire. ”  There was also no structural damage to the building. Great photos by students and staff too !!

 A little after 3 pm on August 25th, I was working on editing up some photos I had taken when I heard Crawford County dispatch Bourbon Fire Department to a residential structure fire and figured Sullivan would be dispatched to assist, so after grabbing my camera, Onxy and I headed in the direction of Mound Road off Hwy C. I called Jim Bartle on the way up there, found out he was detained in Cuba on business, so I continued up there…told him I saw no smoke in that direction but it could be laying down in the valley to the north of there as well. In fact, as it was, I did not see smoke til I was right on top of the house that was on fire and Steve Kimker said he thought the same thing as he was driving out to the fire, also seeing no smoke of any kind. I backed up and parked out of the way, knowing there would be several fire trucks coming to the call, and walked up to the scene…a one story ranch style home with fire and heavy black smoke pouring from the breezeway attached to the north end of the home. Sullivan Fire Department arrived as I was walking up to it and were soon packing up to join Bourbons initial attack crew inside the house….

..and while interior crews were locating and handling the flames inside the home, the junior firefighters handled the outside fires….

…and during the inside attack, a pet rabbit was located and saved by firefighters….

Much of the home was saved as well…great job by firefighters on a very hot day I might add.

I had just returned home from shopping in St Louis yesterday, August 6th, when the fire department tones dropped and they were dispatched to a motor vehicle accident with ejection on westbound lanes of I-44 near the Stanton Overpass. I grabbed my camera and Onxy and I headed that way in the truck…I figured traffic would be a bear on 44 in the eastbound lanes so I took the North Service Road east, which was a good decision since eastbound 44 was backed up at least two miles and even the fire trucks were having a hard time getting there. I parked near the old resale shop and donned my safety vest, making sure the ac was on for Onxy and then walked back down the service road along the fence to photograph the single car accident, facing west in the passing lane with heavy damage….as I was walking up, two ambulances from St Clair rolled up in the westbound lanes and it appeared there were two to four troopers on scene as well as Chief Eric of Sullivan Fire….

…what you cannot see from this angle, was emergency personnel performing cpr on the driver that was ejected, located in the median grass on the other side of the car…a passenger was also still trapped in the car….

…and firefighters attended to the trapped driver soon after, when additional personnel arrived to make that possible….

…the driver was reportedly passing a tractor trailer on the right side when the two collided and the car rolled, ejecting the driver who was not wearing a seat belt….the driver was fatally injured…the normal result of ejections…I never get out on that interstate or any other highway without my seat belt on…ejections are the main reason we have seat belts and they are one of the best safety devices that were added to cars and trucks long ago. 

Bright and early Thursday morning, July 28th…at least earlier than I had planned to get up that morning, I woke to the sounds of police officers talking about a hydrant located in front of a house that was on fire and jumped out of bed, put my contacts in, and got dressed, grabbed my camera, and Onyx and I headed to the truck…I assumed I had slept thru the tones…but one should never assume things. I had made a quick call to figure out where the fire was and then we started toward Virginia Street, could see heavy dark colored smoke as we turned down Euclid and I turned around on Center and parked half a block away, so as to be out of the way of any other fire trucks responding to the scene…this is how it looked as I walked up the street to it…

…at first assuming the house visible in the photo above that sits on the corner of Virginia and Center Streets, was on fire at the rear of the structure…proving that wrong as I walked up on the fire truck, police officers, and paramedics helping firefighters re-position their hoselines to fight a smaller house located behind the corner house….

…I then saw good friend and retired firefighter Jack Cuneio standing back by the alley behind the smaller house on fire, and walked over to talk to him…he told me the house was built and owned by the Rodgers family, who were no longer around the area, due to incarceration these days. The Marler boy was standing there with him and he had reported the fire, spotting it as he was preparing for work that morning….

…I stopped to shoot some video at this point for the local paper and called Bartle to let him know I was there…he was snoozing in as well and decided to stay put once I told him how small the building was….then I shot some more images afterward….

…it didnt take long at all for firefighters to bring the fire under control…I found out later that fire investigators determined the fire to be set. 

I was on my way home from work the morning of July 21st, day before my birthday, and came upon a motor vehicle accident ( MVA ) about a mile east of the East Overpass at Sullivan. Not knowing if Jim Bartle had responded to cover it, I pulled over to the shoulder to photograph it….looked like a dually pickup pulling a flatbed gooseneck trailer of lumber had run off the road, jacknifed, and overturned….and lumber was everywhere all over the hillside….and the driver appeared to be trapped…while I was there, a medical helicopter landed on the eastbound lanes and then Sullivan Fire went to work to free the driver from the overturned pickup truck….

The day before Onyx and I took off for western Kentucky, as I was packing, the tones dropped for a pickup truck on fire at Bartalotta`s sales lot near Elmont Bridge and I-44…like everyone else, I assumed it was a pickup on the shoulder of the service road…however what a shock to find a pick up on the lot with smoke coming out from under the hood and no one around, well after closing time. Police officers broke out the window and the hood was raised to reveal a small flame in the area of the carbauretor, which was soon extinguished with a water can….

I was just about to shut off my computer and head to bed the other night when I heard the tones drop for Sullivan and they were dispatched to a barn fire, well involved, on Highway A…I looked up the address online and the maps put the address at Indian Creek where there were some big farms in the area, so I grabbed my camera and flash, and Onyx and I headed for the truck. I drove thru town and headed down Hwy 185 into the state park…the highway thru the park there was under construction and I had not been down thru there yet, so I got to see all the roadcuts made thru the hillside as Modot widened the path of the highway…something that should have been done many years ago. I figured that I would be able to see a glow soon and that would give me a better idea of where the fire was located on Hwy A. Soon after rounding the curve just past Hwy K, the entire sky lit up with a HUGE orange glow, indicating that this fire was much closer to Hwy 185 than the map indicated it to be…and I was looking for a parking spot out of the roadway as soon as I turned on to Hwy A. I turned the air on low for Onyx and hoofed it down the highway to the fire, with my camera in hand, arriving at the scene to see a medium sized barn fully involved…..shooting without flash on the first one….

…..and then spotting a mobile home extremely close to the fire as well….heavy smoke was seen coming from the end of the trailer on the barn end and a blue hoseline going into the trailer…interior fire crews wisely entered the trailer to locate and attack the fire inside there first….

…and then I spotted EMT Ronnie Martin up on the hillside in front of Pumper 854 attacking the barn fire with another hoseline….

…I walked up and took a few from the hill above and behind him…he told me there were upright gas tanks by the wall of the barn in front of him and he was trying to keep them cooled down….while Captain Cody Martin and Firefighter Gary Midyett were inside the trailer….

…soon after I arrived, a second Sullivan pumper arrived and set up at the bottom of the hill in the driveway next to the highway, where a drop tank was set up for tanker operations to supply water to 854…..

…soon the interior crew came outside and began to attack the barn fire after cooling down the trailer from the outside and extinguishing a small fire under the trailer…

I was getting ready to have some ice cream the evening of the 20th of April when I heard the police department dispatched to a possible fire at the City Pool, which is about two blocks from my house. Onyx and I headed to the truck and arrived moments later as the Fire Department was being dispatched to it as well, arriving in time to see Officers Zack Hudson and Sgt Jeff Rohrer knocking down the fire in one of the exterior restrooms with a powder fire extinguisher….

…and then they waited outside for the Fire Department to arrive….

I had my alarm set for 5 am on Sunday morning, getting up early to take the Memphis Club rockhunting in Eminence, and shortly after 4 am, I heard sirens and the blast of an air horn brought me out of a deep sleep…I missed the initial page of the FD, but immediately heard the dispatcher give the address on Seminary Road and advise flames showing for a residential structure fire. I quickly dressed and then Onxy and I headed to the truck and drove north out of town…by the time we reached Seminary Road I could see a glow in the night sky and as we approached, I could see that the home was fully engulfed in flames. I parked on the side of the road in the grass, set my flashers and hiked up the road a short distance to the front of the home…coming up on the resident of the house as he was walking back across the front lawn…

…only when the heavy smoke cleared somewhat, could I tell it was a brick house….

…this fire did not want to go out…while I was photographing the crews trying their best to get to the flames and knock them down…the wife of the resident stopped by to talk to me and told me how they escaped the house with just the clothes they had on while sleeping and how they had to break through a window from outside the home to get to their grandson in the front bedroom, a very harrowing night for them…as she walked away, I said a quick prayer for her family. I turned the flash off for the next few images….

…and then moved to the side a few feet for a different view of the residence….

…and watched Bourbon`s firefighters kneeling and donning their air masks preparing to assist Sullivan firefighters in the fire attack….

…I left soon afterward as the hour was approaching 5 am. Please keep this family in your prayers, they lost everything they owned that morning, escaping with their lives.