Ford Pick up Fire With Fireworks, May 22nd, 2020

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Friday night May 22nd, 2020, I was taking it easy at home, resting up from work, when Sullivan Fire Department was dispatched to a vehicle fire on westbound I-44 at the 224 mile marker. That isn`t far from my house and as I crossed the James K. Schatz Memorial Bridge on Elmont Road over 44, I could see wb traffic backing up and a glow ahead. I pulled up and turned my flashers on, Sullivan Pumper 854 had just arrived and firefighters were preparing to attack the fire, looked like a four door Ford pickup and it was fully involved, all the doors on it were open and heavy fire could be seen inside it….

Firefighters began their attack from a ways behind the truck on their approach to the front…Davey Sumpter had the nozzle on this fire…

Tim Leasor, with MO Bap Ambulance, a good friend of mine, was up in front of me about fifty feet shooting some photos with his phone camera of the front of the pick up view….I walked up and talked to him for a few minutes after I shot this video….

Fires 2020-0522 Ford Pickup on Fire WB 44 at 224 MM AVI 77

…turns out this pick up had magnesium components inside the cab and just behind the front bumper of the truck…magnesium, when on fire and hit with a stream of water, reacts violently with the water, creating what looks like fireworks and roman candles, going off in the photo and video…I have shot a lot of fires with this type of reaction…Tim was able to get some great video and photos as well from his angle.

Davey and Trevor were able to bring the fire under control shortly after I shot the video, I am sure the passing motorists in the passing lane were relieved as that reaction can be quite frightening to anyone who has never observed it up close like that…

 

 

Abandoned House Fire May, 9th, 2020

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Saturday evening, May 9th, 2020, Sullivan Fire Department was dispatched to a well involved first alarm residential structure fire around 9 pm, located on the North Service Road a quarter mile past the Sullivan Vetrinary Clinic. Call came in as flames showing at the rear of the house, called in by passing motorists on I-44…when I arrived, it was fully involved front to back and through the roof. Saint Clair and Bourbon Fire Districts were dispatched for the assist as well. 

Fires 2020-0509 Residential Structure Fire N Serv Rd E of Vet Hospital AVI 05

…there were live power lines down on the highway side at the back of the house, Crawford Electric had a crew on the way to disarm them and fire crews gave a wide berth while fighting the fire from both sides of the house…I told Chief Eric, that at one time, this had been quite a pretty home and sitting off the service road in a field, I am sure the residents saw a lot of wildlife there….it had been vacant for some time tho…

…crews deployed a larger handline to the south side of the house and Beau Kick operated the nozzle on it briefly from there…

Fires 2020=0509 2nd Video Residential Structure Fire N Serv Rd E of Vet Hosp AVI 16

…I believe the intent was to bounce the stream off the roof/ceiling down into the flames below, they were yelling at him that there was no roof in which to do that, so he shut the line down for a while, and then someone started spraying it again….

Fires 2020-0509 3rd Video Resid Structure Fire N Serv Rd E of Vet Hosp

I shot quite a few videos of this fire as it was tough to move around either side with high weeds and trees and live power line hazards as well…I always do my best to stay out of their way, as well…

Fires 2020-0509 4th Video Resid Structure Fire N Serv Rd E of Vet Hosp AVI 34

Firefighters were having a lot of trouble entering the structure from the front entryway due to the amount of roofing that fell in before their arrival…they decided to cut their way in…

Fires 2020-0509 Sixth Video Resid Structure Fire N Serv Rd E of Vet Hosp AVI 49

…the video above shows Bourbon firefighters arriving to help….and the next video shows how they decided to cut the main support beam above the front wall and then pull it down to get inside and fully extinguish the fire….

Fires 2020-0509 7th Video Resid Structure Fire N Serv Rd E of Vet Hosp AVI 50

…and after that it was a matter of wading in and mopping up…

..I am sure firefighters were on scene for some time after, making sure it was completely out before leaving the scene…Saint Clair responded a pumper with manpower and their Super Tanker as well. 

 

 

Ford Escape SUV Fire at Stanton Exit, April 24th, 2020

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I drove down to the Stanton westbound exit to photograph an suv on fire on Friday, April 24th around 3 pm…the call came in as an suv on fire and when I got close, it was so covered in smoke that I thought it was a Jeep suv, however later found out after posting photos on my FB page, friends said it was a Ford Escape. As I pulled down the Service Road, there was a pickup pulled over and the driver trying to console a young female who was quite upset about her suv catching fire…I drove past and turned around to capture Sullivan Fire Department Pumper 854 with Captain Ray Enloe and his crew arriving.

John Strothcamp was driving and pulled down the exit ramp to approach the suv…

Fires 2020-0424 SUV Jeep Stanton WB Off Ramp AVI 100

Firefighters started masking up and Drew Richards pulled a pre-connect hoseline…

..and once Drew had the line stretched, he put his air tank and mask on as well…

…and then began their attack….

Fires 2020-0424 SUV Jeep Fire Stanton WB Off Ramp AVI 113

Fires 2020-0424 SUV Jeep Fire Stanton WB Off Ramp AVI 114

Thanks to the Carla and Darla Dunne, as well as Brian Beckett for the correction regarding the make and model on the suv. Much appreciated. 🙂

 

Boy Onyx Re-Homed and New Miss Onyx With Me Now

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In the past year or so, I noticed Onyx the boy dog`s anxiety levels were ramping up through the roof on me…no amount of medication was taking care of it either, so I checked with my vets at Sullivan and all of them felt that since he was a near purebred Border Collie, he was in need of a work detail everyday and really needed to be on a farm where he could come and go as he pleased and had plenty of room to run and roam. So, I put out some feelers and ads in various websites, and while out in New Mexico, I received an email from a retired lady near Troy, Missouri, that was interested in driving down to meet him on my return. She had been raising troubled Dalmations all her life and wanted a Border Collie, she lives on a farm up there and has plenty of land and room for dogs, plus she goes horseback riding a lot. She sounded perfect for him and his situation, so I let her know when I would be back and she came down the very next day to meet us, bringing her only remaining Dalmation Lucy, with her.

Lucy didn`t take kindly to sharing her attention with Onyx, but Janee felt that would soon change, as she was very taken with Onyx after spending just a few minutes with him. I helped her load him up in her boxy suv and said good bye to him, gave him a hug and wished him well…she said she would provide me with updates and photos…she was true to her word and within a few weeks, they had bonded well. I had given her some meds that I had left over for him, but he was doing so well up there, she had not given him any yet, so I was relieved to hear that. Here he is at his new home up there in a very spacious backyard with Lucy…

…I do miss him, but know he is in a much better situation for him now, too…after about two weeks, I started searching for another Border Collie, hoping to find one as laid back and calmer like my first BC, Missy. I was searching a five state area around me and could not locate any Borders that were laid back or calmer for that matter, most listed had alot of problems, some even more than boy Onyx had, so then I broadened my search to female Labs and Lab mixes…the first one that kept popping up each day was a female Lab mix named…get this…Onyx, and she was located in the Joplin area. So I made contact with the gal that was her foster mom at the time, and Tamara and I started talking about ” Miss Onyx “…she thought it was funny as well that I had re-homed a boy dog named Onyx and was now considering adopting a rescued female dog named Onyx. Within two weeks, I was driving down to pick her up and bring her home…she was a true rescue, found in a basement half filled with water, with several other dogs..she is a bit timid and submissive but so pretty, and sooo calm and laid back and listens/responds well to commands. She also likes to just lay around the house alot, which is fine with me, and I found out soon after, she does enjoy traveling with me to go rockhounding, so I am pretty sure she is going to be just fine with me…and Mom likes her a lot too. Turns out she is a Lab and Pitt Terrier mix…I had concerns about that but did some research and found out this mix is a highly intelligent mix and very well received dogs…some look more like a Lab and some look more like a Pitt…she is the latter, with a beautiful brindle color…that is brown and black mixed together…her records say she weighs 38 lbs, but she looks much lighter than that to me….meet Miss Onyx….

Started New Job March 16th

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A few days after I returned from my early spring rockhounding trip to New Mexico, I started my new job at Wolf Hollow Golf Course on the turf crew. My Manager the last two years at Greenbriar Hills, Shawn Prengle, called me back in February to let me know he had taken the job of Superintendent there end of January, and asked me to come work for him there this year. I drove over one day to look it over, found a very hilly course with a lot of drainage and erosion problems, that he intended to fix, and was def going to need some help for, told him I would be interested in the job there working for him. He sent me a text while I was out in NM and let me know to be there the morning of the 16th.

There are two lakes there near the clubhouse and I found out they are perfectly positioned for great sunrise photos…was able to capture several in the mornings before I would start my first detail, here are a few for you to enjoy….

…as you can see, we get some nice sunrises there…also a good vantage point for some storms that have rolled in while we were working as well….sometimes you only get to see the aftermath of the storms, the floods, the lightning strikes…

…this storm hit last week with a lot of lightning bolts, one hit this walnut tree up on 12 fairway…Cameron and I were picking up the debris..mainly the shards of the beautiful wood, one hundred feet out into the fairway from the tree, took about 90 minutes to clear the fairway for the golfers that morning…only fatality was a black snake that was electrocuted by the lightning bolt, likely at the foot of the tree…

…we also have two families of Canadian geese there, both sets of parents had some babies born in April and they have been teaching them how to swim and fly lately…where to feed at and where to poop at…mainly on 6 and 18 greens it seems like…we have to extra careful on our approach to them when their young are with them, they set lookouts front and aft as well…

My main detail in the mornings now is cutting the flagpole cups, usually on the back nine, while Wayne takes care of the front nine…then I also pick up the trash and top off the ball washer fluid, before taking the trash to the dumpster near the clubhouse. One morning mid June, I pulled up to the dumpster and heard something rustling around in the trash as I opened the lid..whatever it was, it was hidden under the trash for a few minutes…then it finally popped up into view…cute little guy and I felt priviledged to be able to get this close and take a photo of the little guy….

I wasn`t sure how he was going to get out of there, so Mel, our Mechanic, and Jake, one of my co-workers, went down there after I returned to the shed and let them know, and placed half a pallet into the dumpster so he could climb out on his own, after he got his fill of beer and snacks. 🙂

Here lately in July, I have been seeing an adult raccoon up near 8 teebox, by the time I get up there to pick up the trash, he or she is wandering into the wooded area between there and 9 teebox….haven`t been able to get a photo yet of that one. 

We have been doing a lot of irrigation work combined with replacing some of the bermuda grass on greens, sodding erosion areas, and fixing alot of leaks in the piping all over the course. Back in April and May, Shawn rented a mini trackhoe to do some major digging up on 3 fairway near the green, main idea was to install a large plastic pipe for drainage, up there where three hills and valleys converge…while digging that trench, they discovered multiple leaks and problems with the sprinklers as well…

..that`s Wayne in the foreground working to replace existing irrigation lines, and Shawn operating the trackhoe…

..the new drainage piping above….

…going under the cart path here and will then drain down into a creek below…held down here by riprap rock from a local quarry…yes I checked the rock, no pretty stuff on it at all..I was sooo disappointed…like why could they not get the good stuff from the Washington County Quarry instead ??? 🙂 Once things get back to normal, we will be finishing up this project and a few others we started at the same time. At least the golfers are noticing the changes and they like what they are seeing. This course has been here for about 21 years and we are def making some changes to it. Stay Tuned for more…

Huge Brush Fire in New Mexico South of Albuquerque

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We came upon a huge brush fire next to the southbound lanes of I-25 on March 10th, as we were driving home from our SW New Mexico Rockhunting Trip. We started seeing a large column of heavy black smoke a few miles south of the fire location, then saw a digital Highway Department sign that read Brush Fire Ahead, MP 214, which put it a few miles north of Belen…

the photo above we were just a couple of miles south of the fire, the highway curves in the direction of the smoke just ahead so I knew we were going to pass right by it, so kept my camera in my lap ready to shoot…

…and sure enough, as we approached the long bridge that crosses the Rio Grande River and Valley, the fire was located on the north side of the river which is on the far side from us, and burning heavy vegetation and likely tires and other debris under the southbound lane bridge…so police and firefighters had the southbound lanes completely shut down and traffic diverted on the far hillside north of us…

NM Trip 2020-0310 Huge Brush Fire S of Albuquerque 432

I shot these as we passed by to show the height of the flames…the ground level is at least 25 feet below the surface of the roadbed, and some of those flames were ten to fifteen feet higher than the guardrail, so flames 40 to 50 feet high were coming up off the ground level below…once on the north hillside and out of the way, we pulled over on a wide shoulder where I shot a few photos looking back at the fire in the valley….

I could have stayed longer but we still had a few hours driving time to get to Tucumcari where we were spending the night and dinner was calling, so we headed on down the road.

New Mexico Trip Early March to Rockhunt With Friends

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One of my bosses at Greenbriar called me in February to tell me that he landed a job as Superintendent at Wolf Hollow Golf Course near Washington, Missouri, and asked me to come work for him starting mid March. I had gone over and taken a look at the course two weeks before he offered me the job, and talked to him about it then, and decided to give it a shot. I gave Walmart my two weeks notice mid February and decided to drive out to southwest New Mexico and do some rockhunting with my group the first week of March…I have an extensive story written with photos and video on that trip on my rockhunting blog site, https://www.jwjrocks.com 

If you are ever interested in another location besides Florida where the winters are very mild, and you can handle the different vegetation out there, you should consider Arizona or New Mexico…our daily temps started out about 35 to 40 degrees and quickly warmed to 65 to 70 degrees during the day. That is an area that receives little precipitation as well, the google search I did back in January when I was researching the potential trip, told me that their annual rainfall is like a tenth of an inch a year…they had a little more than that this spring, and the Border Patrol Officers we had breakfast with every morning at the Denny`s Restaurant, told us this was a little unusual weather wise. One drawback might be the rattlesnakes that this area of the USA is known for, but luckily we did not see any this trip…the officers told us we were there too early if we wanted to see them…they normally do not see them til April or May. They do have spectacular scenery out there this time of the year, some hillsides were covered on all sides by some very pretty yellow flowers and there are beautiful flowering cactus out there as well. 

 

Check out my other site for the whole story. 🙂

Brush Fire East West Road near Hwy AF Feb 23rd, 2020

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Normally, I don`t cover brush fires unless there is something more to them…on Sunday afternoon, February 23rd, I heard Ray Enloe call Washco and ask for a tanker to be dispatched to the call, so I drove over to see what was going on. Turns out someone tossed a cigarette out of their vehicle on East West Road and it took off burning up a vacant lot between two residences, getting up close enough to one residence to inflict quite a bit of damage to the vinyl siding, and also consumed a brush pile in the lot….

…that is firefighter Jacob Dace on the fire hose below….

…he did a good job making sure that fire didn`t get going again. 

SUV Fire at Counts Auto Body

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Early Wednesday morning February 19th, on my day off that week, I heard Sullivan PD talking about a vehicle on fire, but didn`t hear where, then Washco dispatched it and they have been having alot of radio problems lately, so again did not catch the location during the dispatch, so had to wait til 854 went responding to get the location, Counts Auto Body and that is only about six blocks from me, so I arrived just ahead of 854 to find that Autobody employees had the fire knocked down with a garden hose…good job guys…as 854 was about to turn into the back of the business….

Fires 2020-0219 Red SUV at Jerry Counts Autobody

…leaving little work for Sullivan firefighters to do…pop the hood and extinguish the fire is all they had to do….as the sun was coming up….

…they had more help than they knew what to do with…shift change between Dave Konys` crew and Ray Enloe`s crew, so two extra firefighters were on scene, plus two police officers, and then the crew from Counts Auto Body…I stuck around to watch them pop the hood, that took awhile, with firefighter Drew Richards doing much of the work and Captain Ray received the accolades…jokingly, but no worries Drew, everyone there knows who did much of the hard work, buddy…

Fires 2020-0219 Red SUV at Jerry Counts Auto Body 2

 

Arkansas Fall Trip 2019

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Most of my story on this trip is on my other blog site, https://www.jwjrocks.com so all I am going to post here are the beautiful scenery and sunsets, as the bulk of the trip and story line are on the other site. 🙂 There was some good fall color this year, starting with the huge tree at the condo complex where I stayed….

 

…and the entrance to the former Arrowhead Mine in the forest….