My first fire video

Just before I left yesterday, we heard a call over the scanner about a structure fire at the dragstrip in Nicholasville. We had never gotten video of a fire before, so Mike and I went out to see what was going on. One of the buildings that happened to house paint had caught fire, and within about two minutes, the entire place was completely engulfed. Firefighters were out there from 3:30 p.m. until well into the night working the fire. Fortunately for us, we got the call and left the office quickly enough that we got pretty good footage of the flames. By the time the news stations got there about 30 minutes later, most of the flames had died down and it was a matter of surpressing any flames that might pop up and cleaning up the mess.

While I was shooting, a woman who was watching everything unfold waved at me, and I realized that it was the mother of a girl that I grew up with. I hadn’t seen her in several years, so I went to her and asked how she was. She responded by shaking her head and telling me that it was her husband’s building that was burning down, Simpson & Co. I chatted with her for a few minutes, reiterating how sorry I was to hear that his business was in ruins. Finally, she hugged me and I left to go edit the video.

There’s a thin line that I honestly haven’t figured out how to walk yet. I obviously want to excel at my job, so getting a video of a building literally burning to the ground is a pretty big accomplishment for me, something that not many newspaper reporters get a chance to do. So on that hand, I’m excited when something like that happens. On the other hand, for every fire video that I get, somebody else is losing something. In this case, it was several someones. That building also housed a plumbing business, and the owner of the paint contracting company, Mike Simpson, had been letting a homeless man live there. So two business owners lost their building, and someone else lost his home. But hey, I got a really cool video, right?

I get the feeling that’s going to be something that I won’t have figured out for as long as I’m in this career. We submitted our entries for Kentucky Press Association awards a couple months ago, and I felt slimy slipping in my photo of a wreck in June that killed a mother and daughter. But that was an example of my best work covering the news, which is my job. It’s a weird phenomenon.

Just a side note — I thought this was pretty cool. Mike Simpson was talking to us while he watched his building burn down. He had several collectibles inside there, expensive computers, photos, memorabilia, etc., and when he realized how quickly the structure was burning, he knew he had time to grab only one thing. He showed me what he had in his hand that he had salvaged. It was a stack of blank payroll checks so that he could make sure to continue to pay his employees. There are some good people in this world.

Here’s the video: