For some reason, I woke up early on Saturday morning of the MAGS Club Rock Hunt……luckily I went to bed early Friday night though and got some good rest, which I would need since we were scheduled for three separate site digs that day. I started hearing a lot of police sirens right before the fire tones dropped for a residential structure fire, and then a police officer arrived to report heavy smoke at the rear of the house. I quickly dressed and grabbed my camera and headed out the door. Missy decided to stay home and sleep instead. The house was only about six blocks from my home, and I arrived to find exactly what the police officer saw, heavy smoke from a two story wood frame house at the corner of North Olive Street, firefighters on scene and inside with one hoseline, and a ladder set up at the front upstairs window….

 Joe Thurmond was also on the scene when I arrived, at first I thought it was one of his rental homes, but he said it wasn`t…..I walked around to the Olive Street side of the house and shot a couple from that side as well, where flames were through the roof on the back side of the house….

 

and then back to the very front of the house where I remained for awhile as more firefighters and trucks showed up. Firefighters inside were having a difficult time reaching the upper story fire due to several ceilings in the older home and flames eventually vented from both sides at the eaves of the house….

Sullivan`s Ladder Truck showed up soon after and crews decided to use the ladder to access and vent the roof….

…Damon Sumpter drove the truck to the scene and operated the ladder, taking great care to raise the ladder up and above overhead power lines, however there were power lines surrounding the house, so crews had to wait til Joe Thurmond returned with a bucket truck to shut power off to the lines, enabling Damon to lower the ladder to the roofline…

 

…and Joe returned as fire began blowing out the west eaves of the roofline like a blowtorch…. 

 

…and while Joe was setting up his truck, ground crews hit the heavy fire with a handline….

 

…and as Joe headed up to the power pole, the fire once again vented from the west end eaves….

 

…and as he was shutting off the power and cutting off the front lines, they ground crews hit the fire once again…. 

 

…and Damon was able to slide Jimmy Smythe, shown on the end of the ladder here, over to the roofline to chop a hole in the roof near the peak to properly vent it…

 

…and soon after, Nolan Crawford made his way across the ladder to join up with Jimmy at the roofline….

 

 

Dawn began breaking as they finished opening a hole on the east side of the roofline and moved over to the west side to open a hole there…

 

 

 

…and as Jimmy kept on chopping with the axe, the fire underneath him grew more intense, as you can see at the vent on the west side eave…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and as the fire intensified, Nolan pointed to the west, indicating to Damon that they needed to move to the right more….

 

…by this time, I noticed the smoke getting lighter which indicated to me that the guys were doing an excellent job of bringing the fire under control…and it was now 7 am and time for me to scoot…so I took a few more and headed home to head south.