That Dang Fire Is Still Burning
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors recently had their debris-removal road shortened a bit when an incinerator ember drifted onto a nearby massive wood pile and set the whole shooting match ablaze.
About two miles from my house.
The fire on the 2.5-acre wood pile - which in my estimation was about 15 to 20 feet high - started Dec. 13 and continues to burn to this day off Keith Road near State Highway 105, despite recent rains.
One of many piles throughout Southeast Texas, this mountain's formation was a sight to behold. I've witnessed its rise - and subsequent fiery apocalypse - since the days following Hurricane Rita's visit Sept. 24.
As a long-distance runner, Keith Road has been a blessing to me for more than four years. I've easily logged more than 1,000 miles running down that road, almost all of it surrounded by pastures from the partially paved Perl Road all the way out to Beaumont's municipal airport. From poisonous snakes (rattlers, cottonmouths, copperheads and corals) and braying donkeys to pit bulls and the occasional malevolent hollers from booger-eating rednecks in beat-up pickup trucks, I've seen many things on Keith Road.
Mostly, it's just peaceful, particularly at dawn when the unrisen sun turns the morning sky into a remarkable color festival.
Then came the debris pile, which is right at Mile 3 of my running course.
Despite the pile of logs lingering on my front yard for months, I knew Jefferson County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were hard at work because of the rapid ascent of this spectacular pile of dead trees. Huge trucks went in out of the place nonstop during daylight hours. Dump and run. Dump and run. Dump and run. The pile got so huge that trucks and tractors began making roads all over the thing.
Then came the incineration phase, in which wood was dumped into a trench and vaporized with a high-intensity flame, kind of like cremation, I suppose. The process was so effective and minimized smoke so much that from 100 yards away it didn't look any bigger than a smoldering campfire.
This was all highly entertaining for a long-distance runner, for whom tedium can be as much of a challenge to overcome as fatigue, dehydration and the pack of Keith Road wiener dogs that won't let me pass Mile 3 until I stop and pat them on the head.
On Dec. 13, while sitting on the couch and watching the 10 p.m. news, my heart jumped as images of The Great Keith Road Debris Pile Fire flashed across the screen.
MY DEBRIS PILE WAS ABLAZE!!
I quickly called the newsroom to make sure the night reporter had the story, and he did. The next day's story noted that a burn-pit ember jumped to the neighboring pile and sparked a fire that, with the help of a stiff breeze, quickly grew out of control. The pile's density ensured an intense blaze that would have required Herculean efforts to extinguish.
With no homes in danger, firefighters decided to just let the thing burn to the ground.
I got to catch my first look at it a couple of days later. With the sun yet to hit the horizon in the east and the moon hanging over the blazing debris pile to the west, it made for a surreal sight.
Today, more than two weeks later, it's 2.5 acres of smoking ash, with the occasional flicker of flames here and there. Firefighters said Dec. 13 that it could burn for "several weeks."
By comparison, during my days at Texas A&M, before tragedy struck a few years later, the mighty bonfire would burn for two weeks before bulldozers came to clean up the ash.
The fire following the World Trade Center attacks Sept. 11 was stilling burning three months later, according to:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1634
But that's nothing compared to the New Straitsville coal fire. This southeast Ohio inferno started in 1884 and burns on underground to this day, according to:
http://www.grayco.com/cleveland/oddities/sample4.html
Angry coal miners, locked in a five-month strike with management, torched their workplace in 1884 by setting oil-soaked timbers on fire and turning them loose deep inside the mine. That must have been kind of fun.
The blaze gnawed away into millions of pounds of coal that run in veins for miles in all directions. All kinds of surface mayhem ensued: hot-water wells, flame geysers shooting from the ground, collapsed roads, etc.
Attempts over the years to extinguish the blaze have failed. Sometimes, the fire was believed to have gone out, only to emerge somewhere else. The fire as of 2003 was believed to be burning beneath the Wayne National Forest, according to:
http://www.forgottenoh.com/News/coalfire.html
Months ago, FEMA noted that Hurricane Rita left behind 5 million cubic yards of debris, enough to pave a two-lane road from Los Angeles to London.
Considering the volume of fire fuel this presents, perhaps, in order to avert the kind of friction that led to New Straitsville's fiery wonder, we should have a Take A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Contractor Out To Lunch Day.
About two miles from my house.
The fire on the 2.5-acre wood pile - which in my estimation was about 15 to 20 feet high - started Dec. 13 and continues to burn to this day off Keith Road near State Highway 105, despite recent rains.
One of many piles throughout Southeast Texas, this mountain's formation was a sight to behold. I've witnessed its rise - and subsequent fiery apocalypse - since the days following Hurricane Rita's visit Sept. 24.
As a long-distance runner, Keith Road has been a blessing to me for more than four years. I've easily logged more than 1,000 miles running down that road, almost all of it surrounded by pastures from the partially paved Perl Road all the way out to Beaumont's municipal airport. From poisonous snakes (rattlers, cottonmouths, copperheads and corals) and braying donkeys to pit bulls and the occasional malevolent hollers from booger-eating rednecks in beat-up pickup trucks, I've seen many things on Keith Road.
Mostly, it's just peaceful, particularly at dawn when the unrisen sun turns the morning sky into a remarkable color festival.
Then came the debris pile, which is right at Mile 3 of my running course.
Despite the pile of logs lingering on my front yard for months, I knew Jefferson County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were hard at work because of the rapid ascent of this spectacular pile of dead trees. Huge trucks went in out of the place nonstop during daylight hours. Dump and run. Dump and run. Dump and run. The pile got so huge that trucks and tractors began making roads all over the thing.
Then came the incineration phase, in which wood was dumped into a trench and vaporized with a high-intensity flame, kind of like cremation, I suppose. The process was so effective and minimized smoke so much that from 100 yards away it didn't look any bigger than a smoldering campfire.
This was all highly entertaining for a long-distance runner, for whom tedium can be as much of a challenge to overcome as fatigue, dehydration and the pack of Keith Road wiener dogs that won't let me pass Mile 3 until I stop and pat them on the head.
On Dec. 13, while sitting on the couch and watching the 10 p.m. news, my heart jumped as images of The Great Keith Road Debris Pile Fire flashed across the screen.
MY DEBRIS PILE WAS ABLAZE!!
I quickly called the newsroom to make sure the night reporter had the story, and he did. The next day's story noted that a burn-pit ember jumped to the neighboring pile and sparked a fire that, with the help of a stiff breeze, quickly grew out of control. The pile's density ensured an intense blaze that would have required Herculean efforts to extinguish.
With no homes in danger, firefighters decided to just let the thing burn to the ground.
I got to catch my first look at it a couple of days later. With the sun yet to hit the horizon in the east and the moon hanging over the blazing debris pile to the west, it made for a surreal sight.
Today, more than two weeks later, it's 2.5 acres of smoking ash, with the occasional flicker of flames here and there. Firefighters said Dec. 13 that it could burn for "several weeks."
By comparison, during my days at Texas A&M, before tragedy struck a few years later, the mighty bonfire would burn for two weeks before bulldozers came to clean up the ash.
The fire following the World Trade Center attacks Sept. 11 was stilling burning three months later, according to:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1634
But that's nothing compared to the New Straitsville coal fire. This southeast Ohio inferno started in 1884 and burns on underground to this day, according to:
http://www.grayco.com/cleveland/oddities/sample4.html
Angry coal miners, locked in a five-month strike with management, torched their workplace in 1884 by setting oil-soaked timbers on fire and turning them loose deep inside the mine. That must have been kind of fun.
The blaze gnawed away into millions of pounds of coal that run in veins for miles in all directions. All kinds of surface mayhem ensued: hot-water wells, flame geysers shooting from the ground, collapsed roads, etc.
Attempts over the years to extinguish the blaze have failed. Sometimes, the fire was believed to have gone out, only to emerge somewhere else. The fire as of 2003 was believed to be burning beneath the Wayne National Forest, according to:
http://www.forgottenoh.com/News/coalfire.html
Months ago, FEMA noted that Hurricane Rita left behind 5 million cubic yards of debris, enough to pave a two-lane road from Los Angeles to London.
Considering the volume of fire fuel this presents, perhaps, in order to avert the kind of friction that led to New Straitsville's fiery wonder, we should have a Take A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Contractor Out To Lunch Day.
posted by Brian Pearson at 9:28 AM
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