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.