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Fire At Big M Salvage
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Mope R. Geezer
Posted 2023-05-15 12:52 PM (#629565)
Subject: Fire At Big M Salvage



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Location: Idaho - where men are men and spuds are spuds

Last week near dusk, fire broke out at Big M's salvage yard in Williams CA.  Apparently started by cotton fluffs/leaves from cottonwood trees falling into compost pile near house.  John tried to put fire out with hose & fire extinguisher, but failed.  House was totally consumed quickly, but fortunately M'Lisa & her sister were able to escape.  Besides the house, about a dozen project cars were destroyed.  The other outbuildings were saved.   Since all of the California wildfires in past years, John has been unable to obtain insurance due to wood stove heat and distance from fire hydrant/fire department.  Go-fund-me has been started by John's nephew.



https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-fowlies-of-big-m-auto-home-lost-to-ho...


Edited to fix the Link for Go Fund Me,, Clive
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mstrug
Posted 2023-05-15 3:04 PM (#629567 - in reply to #629565)
Subject: Re: Fire At Big M Salvage



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Location: Newark, Texas (Fort Worth)
He's O.K.: John wrote: It was somewhere about 7 PM Tuesday evening, I was finishing the day by unloading two cars from the trailer, getting ready for a cross country parts and car delivery. After parking the trailer and forklift, I was going to move my old '93 Dodge to start clearing the roadway to access Jay Simpson station wagon that I needed to get out for delivery to Michigan. The Dodge didn't even click when turning the key. Battery was dead or crusty connection. Popped the hood, and saw something out of the corner of my eye that made me forget about the problem at hand. Fire. A stray car seat was on fire in between a row of cars, I wondered how, for a minute, but ran to the well to fill a bucket of water to quench it. As soon as I had, I noticed smoke near my front porch, and rather than running through the cars, went back along the driveway to the garden where there was a hose to put the fire out. Came around the corner, and found the compost pile and wood pile blazing, but that was far enough away from the house that the main concern was the front porch. The smoke had now turned to fire beneath the porch, and the hose I had was about 3 inches short of making the turn to effectively blast the flames. I hollered at M'lisa to grab an extinguisher, but even as quick as she was, the flames blew up the vines to the eve of the house, and turned to a fireball. I beat on the wall and said Get the f**k out, the house is burning down. Luckily M'lisa had alerted her sis, and they were able to escape. M'lisa went back in briefly, in hopes of finding our pet cats, but they were scared and hid somewhere. It'd be a miracle if any survived, as the entire house was engulfed in 5 minutes. We can only hope. The best firefighters on the planet (I can attest to that) appeared shortly after called, then callen in countless other local firefighting pros. We stayed clear, and were given breathing treatments by the paramedics in the ambulance. M'lisa was told she needed to go to the hospital, I And M'chel felt pretty much OK, other than heartbroke. We knew the house was gone, but our classic restored cars were in buildings not far away. I and M'chel left once the fire chief said it was out, he was keeping a crew on hand overnight to be sure something didn't reignite. I felt safe with that, as I knew the Chief was way more knowledgeable than me about these things. It was after 1 AM when we left the yard. My Nephew, Allan, offered a stay at his house in Yuba city, so we visited M'lisa in the hospital, then at 3 AM arrived at Allans. Part two is next.


Edited by mstrug 2023-05-15 3:15 PM




(john house.jpg)



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