Burning Two Houses

The new parish office will be in the building to the left in the picture above. The two houses to the east were burned by the Papillion Fire Department today.. They will make way for our Pave the Way project to add more parking in four phases. Removing these buildings is among the last items of "phase one."

A number of drills were done in the morning before the true burn began. For example, this dummy was placed in the house, and a firefighter had to locate it and carry it outside. a number of drills were done in the western house where they would start fires and observe how long it took to fill the room with smoke.

On both houses, one of the things firefighters had practiced  was cutting holes in the roof. Unfortunately some water got through in the eastern house and parts of the drywall ceiling collapsed. They were then unable to do some of their drills in the eastern house as any fire would get right to the attic and burn everything right away.

Fire hoses are difficult to maneuver.  It would take a lot of cooperation to take it in this house, take an immediate right up steps and then to the left to put out a fire.

After the drills were complete, the Fire Department asked Bob Roth to knock down  part of the west side of the west house. That prevented it from getting as hot and harming our new parish office.

Then it was time to burn them

down, starting with the east house.

Fr. Damian complained that when he was in grade school he never got to go outside and watch a house burn.

Eventually it died down enough to roast marshmallows.

Training While They Can

The Papillion Fire Department and our local SWAT team are among those who have used the soon to be burned houses for training.

For some reason most people don't volunteer to let fireman use their roof to practice cutting holes. But now they have a chance.

The Papillion Fire Department has told us they plan to do a controlled burn on these houses on Monday, May 11th -- the same week as Ascension Thursday.

It's one more step in transforming the space into parking.

Burning Down the House

Last year we were able to purchase the four houses east of the church. As mentioned yesterday, the first house is being remodeled into the new Parish Office. The other three houses will need to be moved, demolished or, in the case of the fourth house today, burned.This will allow us to expand our parking.

The Papillion Fire Department was able to do some training as they did a controlled burn today. Even a SWAT team used the site for practice the other day.

 The street was closed during the drills today ...

 ... and the water was ready before the first fire was lit.

 Above are air tanks for those venturing in the smoke.

There were a series of training exercises in the house with some initial test fires.

After all, this was a chance for them to learn. One fireman said that it's just in cases like this where they can do things like saw into an actual roof or work with a different floor plan.

 News stations, and neighbors were out in earnest for the event.

 After the exercises were finished, they

 went ahead with the complete burn.

As the Fire Department finished, we were able to start knocking over what was left.

There's just some rubble left now.

In the midst of everything, some Papillion Fire Fighters even found the time to deputize some future fire fighters.