25 October 2011 - 7:24Things You See on Your Bike

Totally random, but on Sunday, Keller and I went for a singlespeed on some of the lesser traveled dirt roads to our south. I always try and make a point to bring my camera along, you never know what you might see along the way.

Usually, you see cool naturescapes. We were riding along side the Mad River for a while, and I wanted to grab a picture of the rocks, all scoured clean from the raging flood waters in August, but the light was not that good, and there wasn’t anything that really inspired me. It was a grey day, and kinda cold, so we didn’t want to stop and run the risk of getting chilled so far from home. We kept on.

On our way back towards the shop, we saw a thick black plume of smoke. That could only mean one thing, fire. As we got closer, it was apparent that this fire was pretty big, and was coming from the north side of town. Fires are one of those things that will instantly draw a crowd, so we went towards the smoke and found this.

FIRE!

This house was badly ravaged by Irene, if you look just behind the house, you will see a bridge, which was underwater during the flood. The house was so heavily damaged, it was deemed unsuitable for habitation and was condemned The owners (Green Mountain Power) ended up making a charitable donation, and gave it to the local fire department to burn down. This helps the nearly 50 strong local FD get some real training on an honest to gosh house on fire.

It was pretty impressive. And sure enough, practically the whole town was there. It was amazing to see how quickly the house was engulfed, even in a controlled burn. It totally gave me an appreciation for what fire fighters do. And while it was sad to think that this was once someone’s home, it is good to know that it’s last act was to help our Fire Department get some practical experience so that they might save someone else’s.