Bad fire in town.

[powderman]

A strip mall just 10 miles from here burned Sat evening. Started on one end about 630 pm, news at 11 pm showed it still out of control. We drove up there yesterday and it was still smoking a lot. I couldn't help but think of all that food lost and jobs too. 24 fire units and 150 firefighters from 5 counties came, but all was lost. A food and clothes closet for the needy, an exercise place, radio shack, general $ store, a smoke shop,  and our save a lot grocery store was lost, we shopped there a few hours before the fire. The stores employed about 85 people. We bought 99% of all of our meat there when they would be almost out of date. Don't know what we'll do now, that store has kept us in meat for many years now. Only Kroger left in town now at their high prices. The folks in savalot and the $ store were friends, some we had gone to church with and known for years. Kinda like losing a family member. Other savalots and wm are about 30- 35 miles from here and an IGA about 18, but they are higher than kroger. We'll see what happens, I hope they rebuild. The radio shack will not be missed, every time I've gone there they had a girl there that knew absolutely nothing about anything they sold. POWDERMAN.   

[rockbilly]

Fire scares the heck out of me, I pulled two little girls and a baby out of a fire many years ago, the girls were burned over most of their bodies, I didn't wait for an ambulance, I put them in my car and drove them to the hospital.  One died almost immediately, the other lived for about two weeks before passing away, since that time I have learned to be very cautious with fire.  The family was very good friends of me and the wife. My wife was a nurse at the time and on duty when the kids arrived, she couldn’t sleep for weeks following this.

We have been under a fire watch here for most of the year, Texas is in a drought condition, most of the local area has experienced fires, I don’t know how many homes have been lost, it seems like a bunch.  Obama finally declared this a disaster area and is providing some help for those that lost everything.  If we don’t get a big rain soon even more fires are likely.

Not a good situation at all.

[powderman]

ROCKBILLY. I'm sorry to hear about the drought and thanks for sharing that story. My best friend Tank died a year ago April 14th. He was burned all over his body right here at my house in a tractor accident 25 years ago. He looked like a human torch, I can still see it plainly. I tried to get him on the ground as he ran but he backhanded me and knocked me down. Then I ran and threw my whole body at him to get him on the ground. 2 years ago today we were having a great cookout at his house. POWDERMAN.