In article ,
Dave Hinz wrote:

Well, it was pretty exciting when one neighbor came over and said "His
car is gone, but I think his parents used to live there with him..."
For a while, we didn't know if we'd have a recovery situation, or just
the fire. Turned out they had moved out years before (he didn't talk to
anyone much).

Ugh... We were in the same situation here - After calling 911, I went
back down to the house (I live in an apartment hooked to a separate
garage/shop several hundred feet away from the house) and managed to
call two of the three dogs to the master bedroom sliding doors and drag
them out, but couldn't get a visual or audible confirmation that the
house was clear. Third dog didn't answer to calls, and the smoke layer
was low enough that I couldn't get an angle to see whether there was
anybody in the bed. I was trying to get a visual when the hallway
ceiling started falling in flaming chunks and fire started blasting
through the bedroom door. Being dressed in a nothing but a pair of
fruit-of-the-looms and bluejeans, I decided that discretion was probably
the better part of valor, slid the door shut with a muttered "I hope
they're all out...", and dragged the dogs further away.

It was nervous when the first truck got here, since I couldn't give a
definite "somebody/nobody inside" response. It wasn't until about 10-15
minutes after the first truck arrived that I was finally able to raise
the owner by cell-phone - Not for lack of trying - Kept getting that
"The customer you have dialed is unavailable" message. Once things got
calmer, I found out why... He was in the cell-phone place at the mall
buying a new one, getting his old one turned off, and the new one
programmed. His very first incoming call on that phone was me with the
news that the house was burning - Helluva "phone-warming gift". Once I
raised him, was able to verify that nobody was supposed to be in the
house other than the dogs, since he, his wife, her father, and their
weekend houseguest were all in the next city over. For some strange
reason, the boys in yellow suddenly seemed a *WHOLE LOT* happier when
that news was relayed. I can't possibly imagine why...

Believe me... I know from experience *EXACTLY* how long a time it is
when you're the one on the calling end - Without going into the math
involved to get a multi-digits-to-the-right-of-the-decimal number,
"For-freakin'-EVER!" is a perfectly reasonable approximation

Is that metric, or imperial "for-freaking-ever", though?

Well, according to my understanding, it's similar to "forty below" -
It's one of those special values they call a "dimensionless number" (or,
if you're a Fred Pohl fan, a "Gosh number" - See his "Annals of the
Heechee" series for a full discussion) - You can say the number, and it
doesn't matter what scale you use: It's all the same. 40 below
Farenheit, 40 below Celsius - Same thing.

These details
are important. FWIW, the ride there seems pretty damn long too.

I don't doubt that even a little - "Am I gonna buy it this time? Is Joe
over there across the aisle? How many dead bodies are we going to have
to pull out of this one", and similar things have to be going through
your mind on a constant loop for the whole ride.

Saved the horses? Fantastic.

The only way the horses were ever in danger was if the surroundings
caught, or something "turned violent" (exploding propane tanks, ammo,
etc) in the fire. Otherwise, they were far enough away that they were
all safe.

I've been told that horses, when they see a dangerous situation, want
to run "home". That's bad if "home" is the barn that's on fire.

That's more than an "I've been told" - It's absolute fact. Horse
response to a threat of any kind that can be run away from is "Go to
safety, at high speed." The downside of that is that it's completely
predictable what's going to happen in a barn fi You're going to find
the horse that managed to get back in dead in his/her own usual stall -
A place where it's "safe" according to their little pea-brains - even if
there are burning timbers falling into it.

When the ammo started cooking off, the closet that it was
stored in had already fallen into the basement, so that was pretty much
a non-issue. Amazingly enough, the largest hazard (aside from the fire
itself) was the exploding canned goods - You'd hear a weird KER-THWUMP!,

oh, yeah. You bet. Also all those spray-paint cans in your basement
shop? Nice popping. Ammo sounds like firecrackers or popcorn.
Underwhelming.

Yeah, the ammo (a mix totalling several hundred rounds of 9mm, .38,
..30-06, .22, and 12 gauge) was far less than impressive. Sounded about
like the usual popping and crackling of a typical campfire. The canned
stuff was *MUCH* more impressive, sounding a lot like mortar rounds
being launched. (and behaving much the same, overall)

and next thing you knew, there was this jagged hunk of metal bouncing
past you at high speed! Two years later, I'm *STILL* finding tin-can
shrapnel scattered around the property.

That'll make an impression on you...

In more ways than one!

As a lifelong horseman (frequently bunking in quarters attached to/part
of the barn), I know all about the terror of barn fires. Throw the doors
open, prod the stock with anything that will spook them out and keep
them there, be it a rope, a shovel, or a pitchfork, and then hope like
hell you can close things up and/or guard the approaches well enough to
keep them from running back in to what they consider a place of safety.

Exactly.

And then cry for the ones you couldn't get/keep out.

Haven't had to deal with that, yet. Been to one where the person didn't
get out of the barn, though. 15 years later, I can still picture it.
not good.

Being the misanthropic @$$hole I am, I'd be more inclined to have
nightmares/flashbacks/PTSD/whatever you want to call it over the horses
that didn't make it out than a human that didn't. But that's just my
(admittedly somewhat "bent") personality.

--
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