Fire

Ever since Grandma and Grandpa B died, Mom's been hoping and begging and asking and nagging Dad to burn down the old buildings on the Hill.  No one has lived in the house since the late '60's early '70's and it has deteriorated and was actually a hazard.  The bathroom was being held up by the vent pipe and the house wasn't even safe to walk into anymore. 

It needed to be gone. 

We happened to get rain last week, so Dad finally decided to burn the house down since fire danger was low.  Even if we had 30 mph winds, it's so wet and humid right now that the grass wouldn't burn which means no danger of prairie fire.

Kev and I drove down early Saturday morning, arriving out at the hill at 8:30 a.m.

 Dad had already lit the house afire and was watching it catch.  Here's where it was less than 30 minutes after he started the fire. 

10 minutes later, the roof was fully engaged.

 And...within another 30 minutes, it was basically all down on the ground.  I was astounded at how quickly a house can burn down.  Dad told me that his and Mom's house would burn down just as quickly--simply because of its age.  What sobering information.  I informed Kev that our next house was going to be built of stone or cinder block!

 We took advantage of the weather, and Dad and Kev lit up some downed trees and trash as well as the house...

 And then we moved on to the old chicken house--which was leaning to the east.  It was full of old wood that Grandpa was saving for "someday", but was now rotten.  It also sat next to a junk pile with wood, fence posts, old water heaters, barbed wire rolls, and other junk.  The shed behind the one burning above, we wanted to save...however, it spontaneously combusted from the heat of the chicken house.

 Then we went on to another 2 junk piles that were mainly trees and old iron pieces.  The one above must have had a tire on the bottom of that brush.  We didn't know it was there, or we would have removed it before lighting the fire.  You aren't supposed to burn rubber because of air pollution, but accidents do happen, and this was an accident.

By the end of the day, all that you see here was gone. And, the old barn is gone too.  We burned it, but I didn't have the camera with me.  Why?  Because I was out in it with Dad and Kev, waiting for it to catch.  It finally did, so Dad and I decided to open the gate and go out the "back" way.  Before I could get the darned  gate unchained, it was getting rather...warm.  Dad asked me to "hurry up and get that gate open, it's getting hot!"

The barn was gone in less than 30 minutes.

Maybe I should be sad to see all these buildings gone, but Grandpa and Grandma didn't live there in my lifetime, and the buildings needed to be gone.  Now that they are gone, we can pick up the scrap tin and iron and take it to the salvage yard.  Then we can take the tractor and clean up the rest making the hill area safe and clean.

Note:  This was a controlled burn.  All local regulations were followed.  The controlled burn was reported and all attempts were made to abide by the law.