Citadel Fire

I took some pictures and a couple videos of the fire that brought down a couple of houses in Citadel back on the 17th. The houses are right across the field from my parents house, so we all had a pretty good view from start to finish. I think we were some of the first people in the neighborhood to notice the blaze, but by the time it was all over, the field below was full of hundreds of onlookers. They must have had five or six crews on site that were trying to localize the fire to just the two houses, but even a third one started smoking as the siding was melting away. It didn't look much like a winning battle until they brought in the Bronto Skylift, which completely suppressed the fire in a matter of minutes. It was pretty scary to watch, and you couldn't help but feel horrible for the people who were losing their homes and everything in them. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Poor Emma cried and cried when she saw it, but I'm hoping it helps her develop a healthy understanding of what a fire can do if you're not careful with it. A lot of people there were speculating that the house had been struck by lightning, but we were pretty sure that wasn't the case, and we heard later that it was started by a couple of kids playing with gasoline and matches in the garage of the first house. The second house got it the worst though, and it is all but a pile of rubble now.