Fire

I'm going to interrupt my scheduled Cincinnati/Newport posts for a local news flash that I thought you might find interesting.

One of the wind towers that line the countryside around here caught fire night before last. The smoke from it could be seen for miles. We are, in fact, something like 10 miles from it, and this is what it looked like from here:

Twenty minutes or so after I took that photo, I went out for another look, and below is what I saw. It had burst into flames, and I happened to catch a hunk of the flames falling to the ground (click on the pic to enlarge it and get a better look). The second plume of smoke is from what had already fallen into the cornfield. There was barely a breeze that night, so the smoke really hung in the air.

The tower was only about a thousand feet from Courtney's other grandparents' home, so they got some really good photos, which Grandma H was kind enough to share and let me post here (thanks, Grace!). Have a look:

Awesome shots, aren't they?!

Then it burst into flames:

The photo below shows a burning hunk falling to the ground (again, click this or any photo to enlarge).

Pretty exciting to watch. We didn't drive over there, but a LOT of people did. There were also emergency vehicles there. However, there was nothing that could be done to put out the fire, because the towers are much too tall for any fire truck or hose to reach. So everyone just watched it burn up. That was an expensive loss!