On Scene at a Barn Fire

I was on my way home after spending some time at work this morning, when I saw this huge plume of black smoke off in the distance. In this area farmers often burn trash or brush, so a plume of smoke on the horizon is not unusual. However, the weather has been very hot lately and the conditions are pretty dry, so burning anything is not a good idea. I twisted the throttle on my bike and headed off in that general direction to investigate. As I crested the hill, my heart jumped in my throat a little as I saw the thick black smoke was coming from behind a small white house. My first thought was that someone's house was burning down which would obviously be disastrous for them. This was back on a country road with no shoulder so I could not pull off immediately to investigate further. As I rode past the house I could see the house itself was not on fire but the barn behind it was completely engulfed in flames. I could already hear the fire trucks in the distance so there was no need to call 911. I pulled off the road at the nearest driveway, grabbed my camera, and ran along the road toward the house.

A million thoughts are going through my head...do I use the polarizer?...ISO100 or 400?...stick with the kit lens or switch to the zoom?...how close can I get without getting in the way?...did I forget any key settings?...The first fire truck pulled up just as I got to the house. The house is on private property, and I did not want to be in the way, so I made sure to stay as close to the road as possible. Even so, I moved along the length of the property several times looking for the best places to shoot. I started out with the kit lens and the polarizer. The sun was straight up, and I like having the polarizer on to keep from blowing out any parts of the sky. I took several shots, but quickly realized I was not getting as close as I wanted to. I fell back behind the firetrucks and switched to the zoom lens. In the interest of time, I did not move the polarized filter from the kit lens, which I think worked out OK. More firetrucks were arriving and there were at least 10 firemen on the scene by now. I was very careful to stay out of their way and they did not bother me at all.

I saw several intersted bystanders and one lady even had a video camera. But, this one lady came up and I could tell she was obviously distressed. I asked if that was her house, but fortunately she said no. She also confirmed no one was inside or in danger. She and her husband leased the barn which they were using to store hay. They had almost 300 bales of hay in the barn along with their hay elevator. Now, this may not sound like a huge loss, but hay is in short supply this year and is selling for an abnormally high price of about $4.50 per bale. That is easily a loss of several thousand dollars in hay and equipment. Mrs. Suiter was very kind and gracious in the midst of her crisis and we talked for quite a while. I gave her one of my business cards and told her if the insurance company or anyone else could use any of the photographs for any reason I would be happy to provide them.

The police began arriving on scene at this point and one officer said I needed to move down past the last firetruck. This was down the hill and about 500 yards from the scene. There was no way I was going to get any more photographs from there, so I was pretty much done at this point. The temperature was 100 degrees. Combine this with no lunch, nothing to drink, and the adrenaline starting to fade and I decided it was time to be finished anyway.

I did several things right this time. I remembered to get all the information at the scene this time, and even worked up the courage to speak to the victim, which really was not that hard. I also made sure to park a pretty good distance away so I was not in the way of any of the emergency equipment. I fumbled through my camera settings and lenses OK, but I can see how important it is to spend time practicing with all the settings. In a pressure situation like this you fall back completely on how you have trained. The brain can only concentrate on so many things at once, and with everything else going on at the scene, working the math on specific camera settings was not going to happen. I can see how an experienced photographer will "feel" his way through a situation like this and adjust his camera to the conditions based on what has worked in the past. One of the things that was new to me was the need to switch to manual focus for several of the shots. The autofocus kept focusing on the wrong things, and it was faster to switch to manual.

The good news is no one was hurt. The barn was completely destroyed, but the white house on the property seems to have escaped any damage and Mrs. Suiter believes her insurance will cover all of their losses on this.