Dear Editor,

 

Most people go a life time without experiencing a fire. Some have small fires, some have devastating total losses.

Thank the lord, ours was just a chimney fire.  However, it could just as easily have been a total under the right circumstances.

You really don’t have any idea what is coming into your life in the next day, hour or minute. One moment you are enjoying your grandchildren, and a log is moved in the fireplace a little and a flame leaps up in the chimney and it suddenly becomes like a rocket launch. In the blink of an eye, flames are coming out of the top of a two story chimney.  The fire department is called immediately and the response is very quick.

By the time they got there, smoke was coming out of the second story vents and in the attic over the garage, and we didn’t know what was fixing to happen.

The fire department was very calm, professional, and efficient. In no time, they assessed the scene and determined that the fire was contained to the chimney that had some cracks in it, which was letting smoke into the attic. There was no actual fire anywhere else.

Rather than start hoses, climb on the slate roof and do a lot of damage, they got large pressurized fire extinguishers and put water up the chimney from the fireplace itself. This took longer than putting water directly on it from above, but it saved a lot of roof damage and substantial water damage to the interior of the house and kept the chimney from a lot of cracking.

They were prepared for the worst, but we were blessed with the best.

When all was said and done, they cleaned up and left, and we were able to get back to more or less normalcy, with a lingering smoke smell.

We could have not asked for anything more from our fire fighters, and the people of Selma should feel very blessed to have such an outstanding group of people taking care of us.

Needless to say, we will have a lot of cleaning and inspection to be done before our next fire in the fireplace, but it is comforting to know that the fire department is ready for action 24/7.

Thank you again Selma Fire Department.

 

Boo Frazer

Selma