July 4th Disaster

I know I've been photographing an awful lot of disaster situations lately, but here's another one! Our town always has a lot of festivities at the park on the 4th--a petting zoo, pony rides, free swimming, carnival rides, etc.--and then of course the food stands. We had just finished with the pony rides when we heard a bunch of hollaring, "Call 911!" and saw the smoke trickling out of the Lions Club trailer...I started looking for my cell phone when my family said, "What are you doing? There are at least 20 people calling already, get over there and take pictures!" So, I did.

This was all right there in the middle of everything--next to the other food stand and the bathrooms, the swimming pool, and cars parked next to it (which got in the pics when I stepped aside to keep out of the way). The trailer went up FAST. Flames were licking the trees, no one could figure out whose cars were parked there to get them moved...fortunately there were members of several volunteer fire departments there with their families, and they rushed over and removed the propane tanks (and the flag) from the trailer before the fire department arrived. We just all stood there and watched the whole thing go up in flames right in front of us; it was crazy! The good news is that everyone got out in time, and the trailer was insured. It was over within half an hour...scary to think it could have been much worse!

less than 2 minutes after everyone noticed the fire


removing the flag and propane tanks








fire dept. arrives within minutes


...just in time






So, that was the big excitement at the park on the 4th of July! We felt really bad for the Lions Club that they lost their trailer, and that there would be no way for them to continue their fundraiser through the weekend, but mostly we're just thankful no one got hurt!