Burn baby burn
Mar. 22nd, 2010 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojOK, so here's the pictures of the (very small) brushfire Justin and I discovered the other day.
We're jogging around the top of a water reservoir near our house, around 7:30 or so, full dark. Justin points ahead and says, "What's that smoke?"
"That's not smoke, it's steam. Probably from the pump house."
We jog on and see little flickers of light, and suddenly I realize whoa! It's a fire! A small fire, but a fire nonetheless. I take Chris' cell phone, which I had worn for the express purpose of knowing what time it was so I would only be jogging for 20 minutes, and call 911. They send me to the fire folks and I'm trying to explain where this thing is, which is not easy when it's full dark and you're away from the streets. It's kind of in the direction of the quarry... can't tell exactly where... seems to be behind the pump house? What's the pump house called? Um... ::walk to the pump house:: "[Municipal Name] Pumphouse". Is it to the north or west of it? Um... north? I think? I dunno, there's trees between us and the fire. It looks bigger than a campfire... yeah, definitely bigger than a campfire.
Anyway, I eventually make my way to the fire, in the dark, with Justin, but I'm a lousy judge of distances/sizes of any kind (I once estimated one of my closest friend's height as 6', when she's actually 5'6", which should give you an idea here), and I'm trying to describe things. Justin's a little scared, because, you know FIRE, but it's incredibly soggy out and the thing looks tiny, so I'm not nervous at all.
At one point we get pretty close and we're scrambling over some rocks and Justin says, "Mama, can we go back now? I think this is close enough."
"No, sweetie, we're-" and at the moment the wind shifts and I get a whiff of smoke and realize that although I am almost 99% certain that this thing is totally harmless, I don't really want that on my epitaph.
"OK, um, my kid's telling me to back off."
"Ah, yeah, listen to him," says the dispatcher. "Kids are pretty smart."
Anyway, a few minutes later the fire truck shows up, I show them where the fire is, they go in, thank the concerned citizens, and put it out in about fifteen minutes.
And that's the story of our forest fire.
And yes, I did get pictures, though they're terribly unimpressive because (a) I took the first one with an iPod, at night, so you really can't see a thing, and (b) the thing was indeed tiny.
Yeah. Unimpressive. And yeah, it's tilted to the side; for some reason no matter how many times I rotate it and save it in Paint or Windows Viewer, Photobucket refuses to show it rotated. ::frowns at Photobucket::
This was the burnt area the next day. I would say it was about the size of my house and lot, and I don't live in a large house.
More burnt ground.
This is where Justin told me to back off. You can faintly see the burnt area waay behind the rocks.
In case anyone read a Harry Potter fic I wrote where there's a magical law enforcement convention in Ottawa, and there's a building that looks like a municipal pump house that's actually a longhouse shrine to Native American wizards? That's where the fire was, just behind the longhouse.
The only mystery to me is how on earth anything burned at all. Justin and I were jogging on marsh mud up on top of the reservoir, and the ground down below was no better. The trees and bushes have no leaves, and are still quite soggy.
We're jogging around the top of a water reservoir near our house, around 7:30 or so, full dark. Justin points ahead and says, "What's that smoke?"
"That's not smoke, it's steam. Probably from the pump house."
We jog on and see little flickers of light, and suddenly I realize whoa! It's a fire! A small fire, but a fire nonetheless. I take Chris' cell phone, which I had worn for the express purpose of knowing what time it was so I would only be jogging for 20 minutes, and call 911. They send me to the fire folks and I'm trying to explain where this thing is, which is not easy when it's full dark and you're away from the streets. It's kind of in the direction of the quarry... can't tell exactly where... seems to be behind the pump house? What's the pump house called? Um... ::walk to the pump house:: "[Municipal Name] Pumphouse". Is it to the north or west of it? Um... north? I think? I dunno, there's trees between us and the fire. It looks bigger than a campfire... yeah, definitely bigger than a campfire.
Anyway, I eventually make my way to the fire, in the dark, with Justin, but I'm a lousy judge of distances/sizes of any kind (I once estimated one of my closest friend's height as 6', when she's actually 5'6", which should give you an idea here), and I'm trying to describe things. Justin's a little scared, because, you know FIRE, but it's incredibly soggy out and the thing looks tiny, so I'm not nervous at all.
At one point we get pretty close and we're scrambling over some rocks and Justin says, "Mama, can we go back now? I think this is close enough."
"No, sweetie, we're-" and at the moment the wind shifts and I get a whiff of smoke and realize that although I am almost 99% certain that this thing is totally harmless, I don't really want that on my epitaph.
"OK, um, my kid's telling me to back off."
"Ah, yeah, listen to him," says the dispatcher. "Kids are pretty smart."
Anyway, a few minutes later the fire truck shows up, I show them where the fire is, they go in, thank the concerned citizens, and put it out in about fifteen minutes.
And that's the story of our forest fire.
And yes, I did get pictures, though they're terribly unimpressive because (a) I took the first one with an iPod, at night, so you really can't see a thing, and (b) the thing was indeed tiny.
Yeah. Unimpressive. And yeah, it's tilted to the side; for some reason no matter how many times I rotate it and save it in Paint or Windows Viewer, Photobucket refuses to show it rotated. ::frowns at Photobucket::
This was the burnt area the next day. I would say it was about the size of my house and lot, and I don't live in a large house.
More burnt ground.
This is where Justin told me to back off. You can faintly see the burnt area waay behind the rocks.
In case anyone read a Harry Potter fic I wrote where there's a magical law enforcement convention in Ottawa, and there's a building that looks like a municipal pump house that's actually a longhouse shrine to Native American wizards? That's where the fire was, just behind the longhouse.
The only mystery to me is how on earth anything burned at all. Justin and I were jogging on marsh mud up on top of the reservoir, and the ground down below was no better. The trees and bushes have no leaves, and are still quite soggy.
