[Jeffonc]

As I was typing a reply to a post earlier this afternoon I heard a loud pop just as the power blinked and killed the 'puter. Sounded like transformer to me, about 1/4 mile away. I started looking around the visible treeline to see if I could see a flaming transformer - duh! power is burried in our subdivision so no poles, but I did see low smoke being blown past from the direction of the noise. Then heard the sirens. Made it out to the front of the neighborhood and was able to grab these pics. Couldn't tell what was really going on for the thickness of the smoke. As we were checking it out, the mulch along the road downwind was ignited.

Drove by tonight and saw roughly 2 acres of burned grass & mulch - right up to the rear foundation lines of some of the houses that back up to that area. No obvious trees or house damage, but it was dark. Not sure if the transformer went & caused the fire or if a grass fire got a ground mounted transformer.

Lots of TV news reports tonight on bigger fires, but this one was pretty close to home and not really where you'd expect a ground fire. Watching that mulch go up is making me think about what I'm going to refresh the areas around our house with this spring.

Be safe with butts, cookouts, etc... especially in the piedmont. Today was exceptionally windy, but if we don't get back on a rainy pattern we'll see more of this.

 

[sundrop]

The fire in Franklinton got pretty close to my Mom n Dads. They got the reverse 911 call about possible preperations to evacuate and had no power most of the day. Dad broke out the generator so they were able to watch the news and keep in touch. Right now they say things have calmed but you can still see the glow of the fire along US1 toward town...

 

[Topsail Angler]

We have had about 20 fires in the Pender and Onlsow county areas this past week. Most of them started by people burning brush. In fact one such fire was started in my sister's neighborhood in Richlands and spread to her yard. It burnt down the next door neighbors shed at the back of the lot then caught my sister's wooden privacy fence on fire and then burnt most of her yard, the firefighters put it out 8 feet from the foundation of my sister's house. Pretty scary.