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So this morning, at 5:30 a.m., my husband, who normally wakes up at that ungodly hour to go to work, woke me up as well to tell me that there was an enormous fire outside.
I grabbed my glasses and crawled over to the window. It was pitch black outside, and sure enough, a HUGE column of flame and black/dark grey smoke was roiling into the sky just a few blocks away. I mean, this thing was really, really HUGE. I've never seen a fire like it. I took some video and some photos (which I will post later), and hoped like hell that it wasn't a series of homes we were watching go up in smoke. Every now and again there would be a popping noise, followed by a great ball of flame. Since that's one of the indications of chemicals burning, we were reasonably sure it was a business, but you never know.
It was still burning steadily a couple of hours later, but had visibly diminished as the fireman had obviously been doing their job. By 8:00 or so you couldn't see it from our house any more.
Fred had gone on to work, the kids were at school, so I did some quick research on the net and found this article. Click on "fotoserie" to see some really awesome photos of the fire from close up. For those who don't speak Dutch (i.e. most of you), the fire took place at a company called Wel Zorg, which supplies handicapped people with wheelchairs and those scooter things. The popping noises we heard? We the scooters blowing up, one by one. There were about 3,500 of them. :c) Now that I knew exactly where it was, I had a chance to drive over there and take some more photos.
You could smell the smoke from several blocks away, but as I got closer to the street itself, the smoke was still thick enough to see. It was like driving through a light fog. I approached the building from the left side, which had obviously blown-out windows and scorching, and there were debris visible, but it didn't look too bad. Until I walked around to the front of the building.
Except for a few feet of roof edge that extended out, the front side of the building had essentially melted. It was made with some kind of metal siding, and the heat had been so furious that it had peeled back the metal like someone using a screwdriver to open a tin can. There was a Wel Zorg truck parked in front of the building that had been caught in the fire, and clearly visible through the now-empty windows, the fire was still burning. Since the firemen were basically just standing around packing up and getting ready to go back to their stations, I'm assuming the plan was to let it burn itself out.
I walked a little further around to the right side, and it, too, was melted down to one story. The back wall was still intact. I couldn't get any closer at that point, because 1) the smoke was killing my lungs, and 2) while the fireman may have been okay with the fact that it was still on fire, *I* wasn't. So I took pictures and some video, and I'll post that stuff, too.
I had to throw my clothes immediately in the wash when I came home, then dive into the shower to wash my hair, because I reeked to high heaven of smoke. Hours later, I'm still coughing and dealing with a headache and sore throat. Blergh. So much for my "photo journalism" skills! LOL!
So. How was your morning?;c)
I grabbed my glasses and crawled over to the window. It was pitch black outside, and sure enough, a HUGE column of flame and black/dark grey smoke was roiling into the sky just a few blocks away. I mean, this thing was really, really HUGE. I've never seen a fire like it. I took some video and some photos (which I will post later), and hoped like hell that it wasn't a series of homes we were watching go up in smoke. Every now and again there would be a popping noise, followed by a great ball of flame. Since that's one of the indications of chemicals burning, we were reasonably sure it was a business, but you never know.
It was still burning steadily a couple of hours later, but had visibly diminished as the fireman had obviously been doing their job. By 8:00 or so you couldn't see it from our house any more.
Fred had gone on to work, the kids were at school, so I did some quick research on the net and found this article. Click on "fotoserie" to see some really awesome photos of the fire from close up. For those who don't speak Dutch (i.e. most of you), the fire took place at a company called Wel Zorg, which supplies handicapped people with wheelchairs and those scooter things. The popping noises we heard? We the scooters blowing up, one by one. There were about 3,500 of them. :c) Now that I knew exactly where it was, I had a chance to drive over there and take some more photos.
You could smell the smoke from several blocks away, but as I got closer to the street itself, the smoke was still thick enough to see. It was like driving through a light fog. I approached the building from the left side, which had obviously blown-out windows and scorching, and there were debris visible, but it didn't look too bad. Until I walked around to the front of the building.
Except for a few feet of roof edge that extended out, the front side of the building had essentially melted. It was made with some kind of metal siding, and the heat had been so furious that it had peeled back the metal like someone using a screwdriver to open a tin can. There was a Wel Zorg truck parked in front of the building that had been caught in the fire, and clearly visible through the now-empty windows, the fire was still burning. Since the firemen were basically just standing around packing up and getting ready to go back to their stations, I'm assuming the plan was to let it burn itself out.
I walked a little further around to the right side, and it, too, was melted down to one story. The back wall was still intact. I couldn't get any closer at that point, because 1) the smoke was killing my lungs, and 2) while the fireman may have been okay with the fact that it was still on fire, *I* wasn't. So I took pictures and some video, and I'll post that stuff, too.
I had to throw my clothes immediately in the wash when I came home, then dive into the shower to wash my hair, because I reeked to high heaven of smoke. Hours later, I'm still coughing and dealing with a headache and sore throat. Blergh. So much for my "photo journalism" skills! LOL!
So. How was your morning?;c)
