MERRY CHRISTMAS???

Normally I would have three exclamation marks after this title but for what I'm about to tell you about I thought the question marks were more fitting. While most of you were sleeping with visions of sugar plums dancing in your head Sunday night, the volunteer fire department in Marengo, Indiana had their hands full with something much bigger. I'm also sure that there were plenty of other emergency units across the country doing things just like this as well but since I was here I'll just stick to this one.

The call came in at just a little past 3:30 on Christmas morning. This particular house was approximately 80 years old and could probably tell lots of stories. It's last story, however, would be its own.

It took the fire fighters only a few minutes to arrive on the scene of this fire and when they did the house was already fully engulfed by flames. I arrived about 10 minutes after they did and the first picture at the top was my first view. The glow and smoke could be scene could be seen as far away as 9 miles. I was able to see the same glow and smoke for a hilltop 5 miles from the scene. The fire had spread quickly through the house and devoured it in a short span of time. It took firefighters about 2 hours to bring the blaze completely under control. Shortly after this picture at left was taken the main portion of the house collapsed to the ground. The heat was enough to break windows on a house across the street. Needless to say the house was a total loss. The only good thing about it all was that there was nobody living there at the time so nobody was displaced.

There is one dark side to this tale, however. Though it hasn't been officially stated yet, firefighters believe the fire was set on purpose. If that is so, the person who caused this put a lot of people in danger on Christmas morning. While firefighters worked, a hot powerline came down within a few feet of two firefighters. Another hazard was a wall that was in danger of collapsing where two firefighters were hosing down the flames. Then there was the possibility of damage to other nearby buildings. Fortunately Mother Nature was lending a hand as she was covering the area with a light rain. The good thing was nobody got hurt in this fire. The bad thing is it was something that shouldn't have happened, especially on Christmas morning. Personally I'm hoping the person who did this has a whole dumptruck of coal land on him. One lump just doesn't seem enough.