Boy Tuesday sure was a long day….I had worked the night before and crashed when I got home…was a long night filled with several fire and ems calls…typical Monday night is like a typical Sunday night, nothing much usually happens after 10 pm…we rocked and rolled all night long. About noon on Tuesday, I woke up because my allergies were out of whack, spring temperature and weather changes really make things rough sometimes…couldn`t sleep so I got up and worked on my site updates for a bit and then decided to go to Cuba and fill the gas tank, cause gas prices are thirty cents a gallon cheaper up there. As I was getting ready to drive up there, I heard Crawford County kick Bourbon out to assist Cuba on a first alarm commercial structure….an apartment building…I looked up the address on mapquest and saw that it wasn`t far from the station I was headed to..grabbed my camera and away Missy and I went…as I approached Cuba on 44, I saw a large cloud of white heavy smoke rising in the sky….

…and two miles later…that same cloud of smoke turned black and got even heavier….

...and it was about that time that Crawford County kicked out a second alarm for the structure fire, calling even more departments to respond, so I decided to drive over and photograph it first. I found a parking spot in the shade for Missy and walked over half a block, stopped and identified myself to a police officer at the scene and then walked down closer to the scene to photograph it. Cuba had their pretty Ladder Truck right in front, with the ladder extended out over the roof and the fire extended through the roof, which was the white smoke going to black a few minutes ago…

…and I arrived in time to see a little bit of fire still on the roof…but didnt get there in time to see the amount of heavy fire on the roof that Bourbon got to see when they arrived…

…could see that Cuba and Bourbon had their hands full with this one and were holding their own defensively until second alarm units could arrive…

this was a group of Cuba firefighters at the east end of the one story structure, trying to put out fire that had gained a foothold in the ceiling and roofline….

…and this next photo will give you an idea of the bigger picture so to speak….

…and while I was over on this side, Steelville FD came screaming down Florence Street on the south side of the apartment complex and stopped near me…and a buddy of mine, Joey Smart, got out of the truck and carried a hosepack over to the corner of the building….

…by this time though, Cuba`s ladder nozzle was starting to gain the upper hand with the roof spray….

…but Joey unraveled the hosepack and had the line charged and he and another firefighter then began mopping up starting on the near corner of the building above soon after….

…I took off for the gas station a few minutes later, as the fire was knocked down and well under control. As I reached the gas station, here came Sullivan`s Ladder Truck and made the turn on to Florence Street, their assignment was to supply water to Steelville`s pumper on their arrival. As soon as I got home, I edited up some photos for Jim Bartle, our local newspaper editor of the Independent News, and then went to Cracker Barrel for supper.

 As soon as I finished eating and was leaving Cracker Barrel, I noticed a very large column of heavy black smoke on the north side of town, rising high in the sky…called the police dispatcher to see if she was aware of it, and was advised it was a bbq grill on fire and the FD was being dispatched to it. I grabbed my camera and headed that way, figuring I had a few extra minutes to take a few photos and then get ready to head to work. I crossed the Elmont Road Bridge and slowed to yield to the lead pumper turning on to Elmont Road then followed them to the scene on Hawthorne Road. I parked close to Elmont on Hawthorne, and left Missy in the ac, and this is the first photo I shot as I ran up the street to the scene….

…the back deck of the home was fully engulfed in heavy flame and at the front of the home, heavy black smoke was pouring out of the garage and front windows….guys were pulling large diameter hose from Pumper 854, hand stretching it to a hydrant in front of the home, as the pumper had pulled to the back of the house on a gravel drive to access the heavy fire at the rear….

…in the photo above, you can see that a bystander is helping stretch the heavy large diameter vinyl supply line as is Craig, one of the medics…those lines are extremely heavy for one guy to pull, specially when you have a few hundred feet to stretch it to….

…it was apparent to me, later confirmed, from the heavy amount of fire on the back deck of the house, that the bbq grill had exploded and set the entire deck on fire, it was engulfed from one side to the other and accessing the roofline as well….

Two firefighters entered the backyard and began their attack on the rear deck fire in the next photo, so I moved around to the side to photograph the fire attack….

and spotted Captain Dave Konys on the nozzle, but couldnt tell who was backing him up…there was what was left of a trampoline between them and me, and it was partially melted down from the excessive radiant heat…

…I walked back up front to see what effect they were having on the front side, and saw the smoke was still pouring from the garage door, windows along the front porch and from under the eaves along the roofline as well….

…the smoke in back was turning to whitish brown, which meant Dave and the crew back there was starting to knock down the deck fire….

…I walked around to the center front of the house to get a better shot of that side….

….and a few minutes later, Tanker 853 arrived on scene and pulled into the driveway behind Pumper 854…..

…I returned to the back of the house to check the progress of the attack crew there….

…and found Captain Dave packing up behind his crewman who was now on the nozzle…

…they then moved around to the other side of the house to hit the deck over there again…..

…and now I had a large solid above ground pool between them and me, so I cropped the pool out of this next one…..

…by this time John Wayne Strothcamp had arrived and was packing up on the side by the pumper as Davey Sumpter led off another hoseline for the attack crews….

…by this time, as you can see in the photo above, no more black smoke is coming out the front of the house and crews were bringing the deck fire under control…so I headed home to get ready for work. I heard later on, there were no serious injuries at the fire but a family pet dog was sadly lost in the fire.