Big News for Small Town

Sometime just after 5 pm, I was sitting here at the computer listening to the girls and the neighbor kids playing outside. I heard the boy saying, "There's trouble! It's a fire!" I figured he was just playing around like he often does. I started smelling something but it didn't really register until Brit came in and said something was burning across the road. Then, the other two came in and said that the neighbor's dad said for them to go inside. I looked out the window and saw a huge cloud of black smoke rolling about a block north and little bit west of our house.

Then, I saw a car across the road. I couldn't tell if IT was on fire or if the smoke was just blowing across it. By this time, firetrucks, volunteer fireman, ambulances and police vehicles were starting to arrive. The wind was blowing just right that our house and the neighbor's were getting hit pretty good. The smell was awful.

Tony decided we would leave to get a bite to eat and hopefully come back and everything would be back to normal. I stepped in the kitchen to take care of a dish. And when I looked out the window, I noticed that the wind had settled down a bit but the car was definitely smoking. A few seconds later a firefighter came running up to it and opened the hood. Flames were spurting everywhere.

Here is the car after the fire was put out

You can almost see the smoke in the air - taken as we were leaving our driveway

Firetrucks at the scene

View from the church parking lot

We finally determined from this angle that a house was on fire. I didn't get any pictures of it as the smoke was so thick we wanted out of there but the vinyl siding on the house was melting so bad it looked as if it was dripping. We found out later it was the house next door. (You should have seen all the cars in the church parking lot on the corner...it looked like church was on.)

We headed for Indy, stayed away for four hours. Just before we got into town, I thought I saw a firetruck turn on a side road ahead of us. I couldn't believe they were just leaving. But when we got into town, this is the scene that greeted us. You can't see it but there were fire trucks all over still with their flashers lighting up the night sky.

Our neighbors were out watching the "goings on" and we joined them to find out...a young boy (12 or 13?) was working on a snow blower in the garage and it backfired and caught a mattress on fire. Everyone is safe. They saved a dog but lost several other pets (2 dogs, 2 cats and maybe some birds). The worst news is that rumor has it they had no insurance.

I imagine I'll be posting some better photos come morning. And by the way, the car belonged to a volunteer arriving at the scene. It caught on fire just before he got there. Oh, and our house STILL smells like smoke!