It's a relief to see mostly good news here about yesterday. We had an exciting day, but it turned out to be harmless enough for us.
We were awakened at four o'clock by beeping from our two computer UPS systems telling us the power was off. I got up to see what the problem was, and decided to look outside to determine whether the power loss was specific to our house, in which case I'd need to get busy and maybe call the power company pronto. It was 6 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I looked out the kitchen window to see if the obnoxious light on the fire station across the alley was on. The station was dark, and silhouetted by a bright orange glow. Uh-oh.
Our newly adopted little town has no water system, so no fire hydrants. That was a major problem last year when a fire broke out across the street the other way from the fire station. That one ended with three houses lost, among other structures. We bought this house a few months after that calamity. So with a major fire a scant one block away, we started loading our vehicles with important stuff. Warm clothing was high on the list. We then got the hell away from here, not knowing if we would still have a house when the sun came up. We own a rental property nearby, which is currently vacant while we do some work on it, so we had a good place to go, with heat and lights on. We drank coffee and watched the excitement from a safer distance.
About the time we got out, the sound of approaching sirens filled the air as fire fighters arrived from nearby communities. The team effort was successful, not in saving the house that was burning but in keeping the fire contained. Under the circumstances, that was impressive. No other structures were damaged, even though some were quite close. We headed back to our dark house and watched the temperature inside our well house slowly drop. There is a battery powered remote thermometer in there. The little shed is well insulated but heated electrically. As the sun came up and began to shine on the well house, the temperature drop slowed and then leveled off at 33 degrees. By then I had a propane heater rounded up and ready to keep all that expensive equipment from freezing.
Getting the power back on was a bit complicated for the crew from the power company, since the transformer at our end of the block was on a charred pole in front of the place that burned. They got us back on line shortly after lunch time though, so the disruptions from the fire were pretty minimal, all things considered. We don't know the people who lived there, but it was a big run-down house that the owners had been working on. Progress in getting the place cleaned up was beginning to show. It's bad enough losing your house and all that work, but in bitter cold temperatures it's got to be that much worse. We really don't know many people here, having moved in during the coldest part of the year and having the Covid restrictions hit soon after. Apparently no one was injured, so that's a great thing.
Here is a picture I shot with my phone, from our back steps as we headed out. On the left is our garage, on the right is the fire station. Behind our garage is a thick stand of trees and underbrush, next to the fire station. The fire station is a nice big new metal building, so we weren't too worried about that burning.
View attachment 31527
