Burn Baby Burn

I've mentioned before that my brother-in-law is a volunteer firefighter. Which means he has all the glory and none of the pay. Usually his duties include directing traffic at accidents within his township, but occassionally he gets the much coveted structure fire. Last night was such a night.

The sis calls me at some point last night to inform me that he had called her a few minutes before, prefacing the call with, "I'm alright but you might hear some rumors so I wanted you to hear it from me first." Apparently while fighting the blaze, something exploded in the house and caused chaos. The Jesus Town paper described it as such:

A half hour after several responders from numerous fire departments arrived, a thunderous boom was followed by the sound of shattering glass as the house exploded, its doors hurtling outward as shattered window glass flew outward and the roof caved inward. During the explosion, a firefighter who was up on a ladder was knocked to the ground. The firefighter got up, but it was not immediately clear if he sustained any injuries from the impact or debris.

Said firefighter was the brother-in-law. He apparently was 10 feet up on the ladder, which for him is still a bit much because he hates heights. Apparently the injury from the fall wasn't as big as the injury to his face. He tends to not wear his face shield down when outside of the house, and the backdraft burned his face, burned his eyebrows off, melted his eyelashes together, and caused some as of yet undetermined eye injury. Nothing really serious.

And though I haven't talked to him, I'm quite certain he's proud of his battle scars. He's always wanted to be a full fledged firefighter, but those jobs are few and far between in rural midwest. So he takes anything he can get.

Anyway, the brother-in-law has yet to determine if he will be able to attend graduation on Sunday. His work schedule may interfere with his strong desire to show up and embarrass me in any way possible. But if you see someone there that is practically glowing in the dark, follow the trail and I'm sure it leads to me.