Last Sunday night, I had just finished a late supper and was preparing to edit up some images from a recent shoot, when I heard Bourbon Fire Department toned out for a commercial structure fire on Main Street in the downtown area. I quickly looked up the address on google earth maps and it showed the address dispatched at the east end of the street. I grabbed my camera and flash and headed for the truck with Missy, as the dispatcher had also stated there was heavy smoke showing, reported by police on scene. Enroute, I called our local newspaper editor Jim, and told him what I had heard…he told me he would also be there in a little while. I arrived in Bourbon and drove to the fire station, wanting to park near it but out of the way of anticipated heavy traffic on Main Street. As I had entered the city limits on the South Service Road, I had smelled wood smoke and there was a heavy haze hanging in the area near the intersection of Hwy J, as well. I found some open parking area across from the fire station and parked, observing fire trucks near the Bourbon Police Department, in the middle of Main Street, rather than at the east end of it. I also noticed a dark smoke hanging in the area of the street as well…still too far away to tell which building was involved.

I walked up to Main Street and then found Assistant Chief Jared Boast setting up Command Post in their Rescue Truck across the street from the building housing Uncle Ernie`s Bar and Grill….a local eatery that was well known and well liked in the area…a place I had only heard about but had never tried out myself. I called Jim and updated him on the location and where he could easily find parking. He pulled up a few minutes later. Here is how the building looked on my arrival…..

…heavy smoke rolling out the front door and a second story window on the west side, as firefighters were setting up their trucks and laying hoselines to prepare for water supply…

….Sullivan`s Ladder Truck 852 showed up soon after and Command decided to reposition it from the front of the building to the east side in the parking lot…

…and Sullivan`s crew joined up with Bourbon`s interior attack crew at the front door…..

 …a few minutes later, as Nolan was setting up Ladder 852, Bourbon`s attack crew came out of the building and Sullivan`s crew entered the building…Bourbon`s crew had found fire in the back of the building in the kitchen area, yet it appeared fire had extended into the second floor….

…Sullivan crews entered the building checking for additional fire as there was more smoke coming from other areas of the building by now…a ground ladder was set up at the front of the building to a second floor window and Cuba`s Ladder Truck was positioned at the front of the building on the northwest corner….

…very similar in design to Sullivan`s Ladder Truck, built by the same manufacturer, just a different color, Sullivan`s red and Cuba`s decked out in their school colors and mascot….

…by this time, the smoke was beginning to get thicker and heavier, still dark brown in color….

…I walked back down to the east end to find the smoke getting thick in front of the building as well as the east side, and banking down, as firefighters brought more ground ladders to raise to the windows in front on the second floor….

…enabling firefighters to open the second floor windows in an attempt to locate the fire…as heavy smoke poured out of the second floor window on the right, another ladder was raised and crews accessed the window on the left side as well….

…the smoke continued to thicken up as firefighters continued to seek out the fire believed to be located inside the building….

…and within a few minutes more, heavy fire broke out through the roof of the building above the firefighters in the windows and quickly spread across the entire roof from front to back….

…firefighters scrambled to re-position hoselines and ladders to more effectively attack the fire from a defensive position at this point….

…I took one more photo at the west end of the block and then walked back to the east end to see what efforts were being made to contain the surging fire….

…and found several firefighters manning a large diameter hoseline in the parking lot behind Sullivan Ladder 852….and another line manned at the rear of the building to protect the storage building farther back….

…about this time, Cuba`s Ladder Truck pipe came into play on the northwest corner of the building and began pouring water on to the roof….

…I walked around to the rear of the building and found firefighters digging a trench under the BNSF railroad tracks and laying a large diameter hoseline in the trench, going to the hydrant at the bottom of the hill, which was a known eight inch water line. I walked around to the parking lot between the Police Department Building and fire building, to find Sullivan`s Ladder Pipe in play as well, and firefighters attempting to knock down heavy fire at the very back of the Ernie`s building…..

…Dave Konys can be seen climbing up the ladder and operating at the top in the next few images…. 

Union`s Ladder Truck showed up soon after and positioned behind the blue storage building behind the fire building, adding a third ladder pipe to the fire attack….

…and pretty soon, all three Ladder Trucks were pouring water on to the increasing blaze on the roof of the building….

…I cannot remember a fire this size and magnitude in the Bourbon Fire District that required so many Ladder Trucks to bring under control…..

…in the next image, you see Konys descending the ladder…he told me a few minutes later on the ground, that while up there, he was unable to see a thing down below except for the heavy smoke swirling around….

….I then walked to the other side of the building, still in the back…and let me say walking past Union`s Ladder Truck was an adventure on its own…those strobes are soooo bright you cant see anything in just a few minutes….on the west side of the building, firefighters had taken advantage of the lower roofline of the pantry building and were on it in force, attacking the fire through the second floor windows of the Ernies building….as was Cuba`s Ladder Truck Pipe in support…..

…I then walked back to the front of the building….

…many times the firefighters were able to knock down the fire, and as soon as they did, the water pressure would drop dramatically, requiring Fire Command to request a Tanker Task Force…and as soon as I returned to the front of the building, I noticed several tankers from many departments doing just that…shuttling water from a hydrant outside of Bourbon to drop tanks located at both ends of Main Street….

Bourbon`s new Police Chief, Rick Wise, was on scene by now, as I noticed him walking around the fire trucks providing scene security…..

…I then walked around to the southwest corner of the scene, the back of the building where firefighters were again attacking the fire from the pantry building roof….

…soon after this the fire was knocked down once again and this time it looked as if the firefighters had the upper hand with adequate water supplies on hand, thanks to the tanker shuttle. Kudos to the many firefighters who at the scene and behind the scenes at the water hydrants who were helping with water supply. 

A couple of weeks ago one morning, while I was getting ready to return to work after a few days off, I heard on the scanner that police were looking for a stolen explorer and that it had crashed into an old building up in the old part of town. I grabbed my camera and headed that way, on a very cold February morning…I called the newspaper editor of our local paper on the way, Jim said he was closeby and responded as well…I have worked with Jim and the paper…. providing them with many images for their local editions over the years. I arrived ahead of the Fire Department and talked to one of our City Public Works employees who told me that the driver of the explorer nearly struck the city truck he was driving and then veered across the funeral home lawn and into the side of the historic home that houses a jewelry store…..

…the story on the scanner was that the explorer was occupied by two people, who both fled the explorer after the collision with the building…however when I arrived, the driver had returned….the damage to the home seemed much greater than the damage to the explorer….luckily no one inside the home was injured.

The morning of Wednesday, Feb 4th, I was getting ready to clean some rocks and heard Bourbon Fire Department`s tones dropped on the scanner and dispatched to a residential structure fire on Hwy J, near Seminary Road…I knew this was in Sullivan`s Fire District and they would be soon dispatched as well, so after grabbing my camera, Missy and I headed for the truck. The fire crew on duty must have overheard the dispatch as well and I spotted them northbound on Hwy 185 as I approached the Elmont Bridge. They were soon out of my sight and I turned on Seminary Road…figuring I would catch up to them, but it was soon apparent that they had continued north on Hwy H instead. Seminary Road is a good straight road once you cross the creek and I was able to make good time, arriving right behind Bourbon Fire Department, finding the Voss residence filled with heavy brown smoke. It took me a few minutes to find a parking spot off the roadway, which I knew would soon be filled with fire trucks, and in that time, Sullivan`s Pumper 854 arrived. As I walked up to the house, I stopped to talk to neighbor and good friend Don Moss, who had called in the alarm after driving up on the fire…Sullivan`s crew joined Bourbon`s crew and entered the basement via the back stairway, where much of the heavy smoke appeared to be coming from….

…while Daniel Whatley, Bourbon`s Chief, and his brother Jared Boast, waited outside prepared to hump more hose inside the house if needed, assisted by MOBAP paramedics…additional firefighters from Bourbon and Sullivan arrived and found additional locations inside the attached garage where the fire had extended to….

…and once the garage door is cut open by saw, heavy smoke pours from the garage…..

…and firefighters enter the garage with a hoseline in seek of fire extension….

Soon after, a positive pressure fan is set up at the back stairway entry door and soon smoke is starting to pour from every exit and lightening up as well, a good sign….the Voss residence saved by great teamwork by three neighboring agencies….