Up in Smoke

Wednesday I was anxious to get home for a few minutes after work, to see Josh and do a few things before I went to church for a meeting. It had been a rough day and I was worn out. As I got close to our old office on Rt 42, Kelly called me on my cell phone and told me that Dave's Recycling was on fire. He had just passed it, and no trucks or anything were there yet. Then I saw the smoke....then I heard the sirens.....one after another. Fire trucks, fire chief vehicles, police cars, etc. were passing us with their sirens wailing. When I got up near the fire, I realized that they were probably not going to let me pass and turn onto Erickson to go home. Traffic stopped on the road as they began to block off traffic. I pulled into the Food Lion/CVS parking lot to wait until I could turn around and go the other direction.

Soon, everyone in Harrisonburg seemed to have the same idea. Cars were pulling in, and people were getting out of their cars to look. Then they began pouring out of the stores and Arby's to join the crowd. At that point, the buildings were still intact. But the flames were raging. Seemed totally out of control. Then the fire turned green. (aluminum burning?) Then the smoke turned black. We began seeing trucks from Broadway, McGaheysville, Grottoes, etc. They seemed to keep coming.

I saw Billy Holloway and Mark Leavitt standing and watching the fire. They saw me and came over and we stood there and couldn't believe how fast and furious it was. The flames seemed to be nearing the buildings on our side of the fence. A truck came barrelling through the parking lot and pulled over. Soon the crane was up, and one very brave fireman, with an oxygen tank on, began spraying down the building that wasn't on fire, then directly on the fire. Water was shooting from everywhere...from different sides of the fire, wherever the trucks could get close enough. The fire spread quickly and soon the recycling center was diminished to a few standing steel beams.

Everyone who was watching talked with one another about what they had seen. People acted like we were all family. Interesting phenomenom. Many stood on their cars to take videos/pictures. I stood there mesmerized for over an hour, praying everyone was OK, and grateful for those men and women dedicated to helping us in times of trouble. This pic was taken with my phone about 45 minutes after I had first seen the fire.

It was a common sight to see someone get out of their car with fire gear on, and see that they were volunteer firemen and women....coming from many areas to help. Employees came from Food Lion with drinking water to aid those who were helping in any way.

Wow.

I heard tonight that no injuries were reported. Yay! After I left the church at 8:45 tonight, there was still smoke in the air at church, and when I went near the scene, there were still several cranes up with firemen trying to contain the fire, and there were probably 15-20 fire trucks still at the scene. Of course, with my background, I am hoping they had adequate insurance.
This is a family-owned business, and their home is right in the front of the property. Tonight it seems like the home is fine, but several buildings burnt to the ground.

A few days ago, we took some files from our office to the recycling center to have them shredded, for privacy purposes, since they contained some personal information about past customers. I guess I can be confident they are destroyed, huh?

Yep...it was a hot time in the ole' town tonight.