Another "On a Dime"

It is easy to forget how fragile life can be when we are busy meeting the goals of the day, checking off the items on the list, or crawling into the life of some fictional character through a book, TV show or movie.  Yes, we may get interrupted by a bee sting, but unless and until we get a nasty allergic reaction, we tend to be strong and impervious and move on.

Hubby was working on our boat one afternoon a few days ago.  We had had some problems with the pump and I think he may have been checking that.  I was upstairs working on photos, which I do a lot.  He called me on his cell:

"You might want to come down and see this.  I have already called it in."

I grabbed the nearest camera and it had a telephoto, which was both a good thing and a bad thing.  I was unable to capture the true vastness of the plume of smoke, but I was able over the time to zoom in on the volunteers from our fire department that finally arrived, although sometimes a blurry zoom due to no tripod.  Hubby said he had heard a small explosion/pop as he was stepping out of our boat and turned to see what I saw below and that the emergency operator, who took his call a minute later, said he was the second person to call it in!

Neighbors up a few docks on our side of the river had seen two young people heading to the boat in flames and screamed at them to back off which they did.  There were small explosions from various containers going off while we waited for fire rescue.  Boats have fuel compartments and docks sometimes store fuel, so fires like this can be dangerously explosive.  People do not usually smoke in boat yards.

The fire was just a dock's width (about 5 feet) from the boat in the foreground.  I am still wondering if the hull on that boat was bent by the heat.

It took the firemen almost 15 minutes to arrive because as those of you who live on coastlines know, the roads are never straight but usually narrow and our fire station is only a couple of miles away.  They had to haul that heavy hose from some distance I am guessing.

Once they got the water on the bow and into the middle, the smoke began to immediately change to white and the heavy water brought it down onto the river.

We were surprised that the dock had not been so compromised that firemen could walk out and attack the fire from the side and rear.  You can see the platform on the stern is still burning.  Yep, they are brave...or oblivious.

They had pretty much put out the fire by the time the rescue boat arrived with its water pump.  No one was hurt, and we did not know the owners, but someone had said they appeared to be out of town.  This type of boat can cost from 25K to 50K, so I am hoping they were insured!  The very next day the hull was hauled away to protect future navigation.

Life changes on a dime even if you are not paying attention.