We recently had a fire in the Bosque, the woods along the Rio Grande River, in the Southern part of Corrales. About 17 acres were burned. Quite a few families and animals were evacuated, but fortunately no homes or animals were hurt by the fire. We’re in the Northern part of Corrales so we were never threatened.
The fire brought back two very vivid memories for me.
The first is from our college years. My roommate and I were driving back from campus to our apartment that was on the other side of town. Betty was with us. As we topped a hill we saw a lot of smoke coming out of a large, industrial building that we later found out was a tobacco warehouse. We stopped and, while we watched, flames started showing up through the roof and out the windows.
Shortly after we stopped several fire engines came rolling up and they started to fight the fire. Unfortunately, there was a New Mexico type wind blowing that day and the fire was growing exponentially out of control.
There was a row of two-story wood frame houses across the street. As we watched, the wind-whipped flames continued to spread. We could see black spots begin to appear on the side of the closest house. Within a minute or so, it burst into flames from the intense heat. Within a matter of just a few minutes more, the houses closest to it began to darken and then burst into flames.
I don’t remember if anyone was hurt or not, but there was a lot of property damage that day. That memory, which is over 40 years old, is still very vivid for me.
The second memory is when I was in Navy Officers Candidate School. We had to take basic firefighting training. That meant we had to go into a compartment with burning oil and the smoke was black and thick, very similar to the picture in this post.
We weren’t given any breathing equipment so we could experience the smoke and fire as they might occur on a ship.
I remember the instructor telling us to keep low and breath shallow breaths through our nose as we worked our way through the thick, black, oily smoke. At first it was a very terrifying feeling. You didn’t think you could get a breath at all, but you could if you did what you were told.
The other thing he told us was to get to the fire as soon as we safely could. The fire was drawing all the oxygen to it and, as we got closer to the fire, there would actually be more air to breath and less smoke – and he was right.
It was quite an experience and gave us a lot of confidence we could deal with a real shipboard fire if it ever happened. Fortunately, I never had to deal with that in real life.
Fire is scary.
4 comments:
How interesting that you were instructed to get closer to the fire, when all instincts tell us to move far away from the fire. But it makes sense that the oxygen would be sucked into the flames.
Yes, fire is so scary. It is ravenous and quick. About 6 years we learned that all too well when the house that was directly across the street from us on our neighborhood burst into flames, waking us up at 3am on my hubby's birthday.
We woke up to see our bedroom walls bathed in flickering red and we could hear popping, crackling and booming noises.
When we looked out our bedroom windows we were shocked to see the neighbor's house engulfed in flames and felt sick but relieved when my neighbors burst out of their front door in their pajamas, narrowly escaping. Sadly their dogs didn't survive as they were in the garage in kennels and that was where the fire started....when the water heater exploded.
John and I came outside and stood at our front yard with other neighbors to watch the carnage and were shocked as the fireplace chimney toppled and the cars in the driveway began to melt and burn. Thankfully the fire department showed up before the gas tanks caught on fire, but not soon enough before the neighbor's house right beside the burning house caught on fire, too. The entire wall was scorched and all the vinyl siding was melted off.
They fought the fire into the morning and it was still smoldering into the afternoon.
What made it so frustrating for us, too, was that our house was for sale, but because all our windows looked out onto the burnt out shell of the house and the smell of rotting food and charred piece of paper, trash and materials from the house kept blowing into our yard.....we didn't get anyone interested in even looking inside our house.
It was also very spooky to look across the street during the day and night and see the burnt skeleton of the house. It was a creepy and terrible reminder of what fire can do in a short amount of time.
Not until several months later when a wrecking crew came to tear the house down after the insurance agreed to rebuild, did we finally get some people wanting to look at our house.
Yes, fire is scary. I'm glad noone in Corrales, human or animal was injured.
~Lisa
Damn straight, Fire is scary. This post brought tears of memory back of the time our ranch burned. Maybe I will be able to post on it someday.
Fire is one of mine and my husband's biggest fears. It is just so powerful and strong. I am glad only 17 acres burnt. Those fried in california that we hear about all of the time take out thousands of acres. It is amazing to me.
I meant fires in California.
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