Double Rainbow and Sunset March 13th

Posted on March 15, 2019 by jwj

It rained pretty much all day long Wednesday March 13th, I had been checking the radar all afternoon and evening, the last time I checked it, rain showed up all the way west of us to Cuba…however the sky outside was telling a different story…I looked out the window about 6 pm and there was a beautiful orange glow starting to take over the skies…I grabbed my camera and walked outside to see a complete rainbow across the street from me and the other end back behind my house starting to form up. I drove up to the city park to see if I could get back away from it enough to capture the whole thing in a few photos or video, but only by video could I shoot the whole thing or at least come close…

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with photos I was only able to shoot both ends, specially after it formed the second shadowing rainbow….

…and this yellow glow in between the beams was really strange, it was like a strong yellow filter slapped over the lens of my camera, and I wasn`t able to remove it even during editing of my images….once the double image formed, I drove over to the north side of I-44 and there, could only photograph the east half of the rainbow…

…and then it began to fade from the southern skies first…as they turned darker and the orange glow of the sunset took over with the beautiful pink clouds above…I drove back over to the city park and shot the sunset from there….

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News 4 St Louis Requests My Car Fire Videos

Posted on March 15, 2019 by jwj

The day after I shot the car fire, Paige Hulsey, a local girl who is a good friend and reporter with News 4 St Louis, KMOV station, hit me on Facebook and she told me that her producers really liked my videos, wondered if they could use them on the news for a story they had her working on. I let her know that was very possible, I would check with Sullivan Independent News Editor Jim Bartle and see if he was okay with it and let her know. Jim was okay with it and I let Paige know when she called later in the day with more information on the story they were working on…turned out they initially liked how I helped the lone firefighter with the car fire while taking photos and wanted to do a story on that…I told her that was something I had done for 38 years of the nearly 40 years I had been on the Sullivan Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter and it just came back to me naturally on what to do. She told me that they were working on another story, about the shortage of volunteer firefighters that supplement full time firefightrs in many fire departments surrounding the St Louis area and were interested in something to tie into that story. I told Paige that my videos would be such a short story that it really wouldn`t compliment her main story, but suggested she come out and interview Chief Eric about the outstanding Junior Firefighter Program that Sullivan Fire Department has, including the Junior Firefighter Academy that they host each summer, which is well attended by many junior firefighters from all around the state of Missouri. I checked with Chief Eric and he said he would be happy to talk to her about their program and put her in touch with him so they could begin to work on it soon. Paige said they would use my videos of the car fire later that day…they were on during the 10 pm broadcast…here is the link, I think they did a great job on the story, short and sweet just as I figured it would be !!

https://www.kmov.com/news/watch-photographer-puts-down-camera-to-help-put-out-car/article_378c96ca-45ff-11e9-8dd3-e3855fab331b.html

Car Fire Hwy 185 South near Hwy A March 12th

Posted on March 15, 2019 by jwj

Tuesday morning, March 12th, I was doing some work on my computer when I heard Sullivan Fire Department`s tones drop for a MVA, tractor trailer off the roadway, at the 230 exit of I-44 EB, Stanton Exit. I heard Chief Eric respond with Pumper 854 and dispatch advised him they were taking a call for a car fire at Hwy 185 south and Hwy A, began wondering who was going to take that call when I heard Jimmy Smythe key up the radio and advise Chief Eric he would respond momentarily in Pumper 834 to the car fire, and thought he had firefighters responding with him.

Onyx and I headed to the car fire as well and we arrived about ten minutes later, not far behind the pumper. As I was approaching and passing Hwy K, I started seeing heavy black smoke about a mile ahead. By this time I was behind a semi dump truck and as we approached I spotted the sedan on the north side of the highway in a pullout spot, fully involved, heavy black smoke rolling across the partially blocked highway….I pulled past the pumper that was spotted in the northbound lane facing southbound, then saw Jimmy pulling the pre-connect hoseline and stretching it out. I parked in the wide spot on Hwy A at the intersection of Hwy 185, locked Onyx inside the truck and loped down to the pumper, where JImmy was packing up…the small sedan fully involved behind the truck….

I walked up to Jimmy and asked him where his crew was…he said he was it…I was shocked and I`m fairly sure it showed on my face…so I asked him if he needed any help…he said sure, told him I would run the pump and help him out as much as I could, he had already set the pump at 125 psi on the hose, I asked him if he wanted to keep the pressure at that setting and he said he would start with that and let me know….he finished packing up and headed to the nozzle…

and then I shot some video from pumpside at the truck….

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…and soon it looked like he had a quick knockdown of the heavy fire and smoke….as I was taking a few photos, I talked to the driver of the car who was standing there as well, he said his son had just joined the fire department as a new junior firefighter, he had just dropped his wife off at work and he was returning home to check the car, which had been acting up in the past week. He noticed black smoke from the rear exhaust pipe and as he pulled into the spot off the highway there, flames began coming up thru the floorboard at his feet, as he exited the car.

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…the flames on both sides of the car kept him hopping back and forth a bit….

…he then moved in to concentrate on the dashboard console a bit more……

and….BOOM…fireworks ensued…roman candles appeared to be shooting everywhere in every direction !!….

…apparently the steering column was made of magnesium, which when burning, reacts violently with water, creating a nice 4th of July type fireworks display, looks like Roman Candles firing off in all directions from the car….I shot these photos and could not switch to video fast enough to capture those rockets….

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…the later half of this video above was the first indication to me that there was fuel in the gravel underneath the car that was re-igniting the car, can tell from the behavior of the flames quickly moving from rear to front of car close to Jimmy in the video…

Pretty soon Jimmy moved back to the other side of the car and tried to get to the flames underneath the car…flames came up on the other side of the car and appeared be dancing at times…obviously fed by the leaking fuel….

…how wild is that ???!!!

…and soon the fire began to spread under the front of the car and take off again due to the fuel re-igniting the car once again….

…then spread and ignited the rear of the car too….

…I was beginning to wonder if we were going to have to switch over to foam and trying to remember how the foam system worked with this pumper…

…Jimmy stayed with it, pushing back as much as he could, then switched to the other side of the car once again and hit it hard there too…..

He took a break and walked over to check the water level in the tank, asked me to drop the pressure a little bit, so I brought it down to 90 lbs pressure on the line…told me the gas tank was leaking under the back seat and he couldn`t reach it with the stream of water….he then returned to the line and hit it hard again….

…and soon after, Damon Sumpter and his crew on Pumper 854, followed by Chief Eric, came around the corner on Hwy 185, and arrived to help finish extinguishing the car fire that refused to go out….

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…the car was re-igniting on the drivers side by the rear door once again as Pumper 854 pulled up and positioned in the northbound lane….Damon`s crew jumped out and walked up to Jimmy who took a short break and then began to hit it once again…

…and a few minutes later, had it knocked down once again….he and Gary opened hood to take a look at the engine compartment…

A Washington County Sheriffs Deputy arrived and parked in front of Pumper 834, checked with the driver about a wrecker and made arrangements with him to pickup the car at a later time since it was off the road. As I was getting ready to head back to town, Jimmy thanked me for the help, told him it was not a problem at all, brought back lots of memories. Once a firefighter, always a firefighter….in my humble opinion.

Dillard Mill With a Little Snow

Posted on March 15, 2019 by jwj

Onyx and I were on our way to do some rockhunting down by Viburnum the first weekend of March…as we were traveling down Hwy 49 south of Cherryville, we started seeing some snow on the side of the road. All we had at home was a little frost, but to the south, it was apparent they had seen some snow that morning, and as we got closer to the turn off to Dillard Mill, the more snow we saw, so we turned and drove over to the mill to see if there was more snow there….and there was….

Semi Fire EB I-44 at the 225 MM in Sullivan

Posted on March 15, 2019 by jwj

I meant to get more stories added to my blog site this afternoon, but it turned out to be a high wind alert day and area fire departments were kept busy with brush fires and then about 5 pm, Sullivan had a structure fire north of town, which turned out to be on the property of a friend of mine.

This semi fire occurred within a few days of a massive fire at the Flying J Truckstop in Sullivan involving two semi`s, luckily firefighters were able to contain it pretty quickly with eastbound traffic stopped behind it for the safety of firefighters to fight it…..

…I arrived just ahead of Sullivan Fire Department, as it was just down the street from my house a few blocks. There was a truck driver with several fire extinguishers in his arms and one truck driver kneeling down in the water lined ditch seeking relief for minor burns to his hands…a Sullivan Police Officer was on his way over to check on him as EMS was pulling up as well….