The fires raging in Texas over this summer became personal in June. There was a raging forest fire by my house in Spring, Texas which is a suburb of Houston. I remember early in the day smelling smoke and trying to figure where it was coming from. Once I was able to spot the fire I knew it wasn’t going to be good. I started going in and out of the house trying to figure out if it was still going on. I didn’t know if I needed to leave. The day got windy where ash kept blowing past me.

That fire endangered around 200 homes in my neighborhood. The fire was estimated to be around 50 acres in size. It started in the area behind Gloria Marshall Elementary School. Officials evacuated residents from my neighborhood around 3:20 p.m on Friday June 17th, 2011. First United Methodist Church in Humble was used as a shelter for those displaced by the fire. We decided to just hang in the cars.

The Texas Forestry Service reported that the fire started around 10 a.m. It began as a 3-acre fire but grew over the course of the day. Firefighters were having trouble containing the blaze due to lack of humidity, heat and dry vegetation in the area. They battled the fire with extra help from helicopters and a plane. I heard they dropped 200 gallons of water at a time! Then three tractors plowed through the area to help as well to keep it from starting back up again.

The evacuation notice was lifted later that same evening. We went home to find everything was fine. We were lucky that they were able to stop it before we lost anything. We had another fire on September 5th which was farther away but close to home. We did not have to evacuate that time. The Waller fire burned more than 10,500 acres and destroyed more than 76 structures which included 60 homes. While I am very fortunate that I still have my home I feel really bad for those that lost everything.

  In my pictures you can see the helicopters flying over and the plane.

Spring High School had an electrical fire this morning which cancelled classes. I didn’t hear anything about this until after my son came home from school and told me himself. I turned on the TV couldn’t find anything about it on the local television stations. So I did what any internet addicted person would do and went online. Social media sites have now become one of the best places to hear about breaking news anyway. I found out that a fire broke out in the school’s main electrical panel first around 8 a.m. The fire forced the school shut down the power. My son as well as everyone else was made to go to the football field until they could be transported home. Why did they send the kids who drove to school there to the field? They said in the articles I read that the school had notified the parents so they could come pick up their kids. I was never notified! Why? I also heard Cypresswood Drive and I-45 was shut down until the fire department cleared the scene. Since this school year started Cypresswood is at a crawl/standstill anyway. There has not been anything reported about what damage the fire did. Also at the moment they don’t know when school will be back in session. I wonder how long it will take to fix? Maybe I should put him to work in the yard today!

A huge fire destroyed one of the businesses in downtown Shawnee overnight. The business was Loco’s at 107 E Main St. which was a small antique shop and had only been open for about 9 months. The call about the fire came in to the department about 1 a.m. According to the fire chef the crew could not make an interior attack due to the heat. The fire was so intense that it collapsed the roof. It took almost 8 hours for the fire to completely be put out. Two other buildings sustained heavy smoke and water damage.

When I heard about the fire I ran to look up the address. I have been in many of the businesses along Main Street and have done investigations of several places. Loco’s it turned out was not one of my past investigations. I was still upset to see it destroyed. In previous investigations in this town we have found active hauntings and what we call residual energy. This residual energy is like a recording on a cd that happens for unknown reasons. When the conditions are perfect the recording can replay making anyone that happens upon it to think the place is haunted. I wonder if Loco’s had any activity? When they rebuild they may notice things happen in weird places like someone walk up a staircase that is no longer there.

It is sad when history is lost! It seems that lately several historic locations have caught fire. Just a few weeks ago Fort Chaffee Hospital Complex burned to the ground. The Fort Smith Fire Department has deemed that it was an accident. Members of the Kentucky National Guard who are fans of the show Ghost Adventures were doing training at Chaffee and decided to go see it for themselves. It is believed that one of them discarded a lit cigarette into a grassy area near one of the buildings at the Fort. The fire burned approximately 90 acres and more than 120 buildings. Back in February The Sisters of Charity of Providence school in DeSmet, Idaho burned down. The building was more than 100 years old and was a historical landmark. Reviewing the history showed two earlier buildings on the property were destroyed by fire in 1881 and in the early 1900s.

Today there is an old building 15 miles east of Springfield in Buffalo. The house was built around 1840 and it is now on the schedule to be burned down! If you care about history perhaps you will be upset enough to contact the people who will be responsible for letting it go! The house was a “12-mile house” for stagecoach drivers and their horses who would be traveling between Springfield and Decatur.
Drivers could stay the night and rest their horses before finishing the trip the next morning. Some historians believe that Abraham Lincoln may have even stayed there.

Apparently the owners donated house to the Buffalo Fire Protection District because they want it gone. It is scheduled to be used for live fire training in September when the weather will be cooler. The chef said they would like to burn it for training because it is in a sate of disrepair and an eyesore. They must get permission before they burn it though. I am hoping that they will not be granted their wish. The Historic Preservation agency can deem the house to be historic because it is more than 50 years old and has some type of historical significance. I am concerned that yet again we are going to loose another piece of history if the house is destroyed. Are you? I would love to be able to get inside the house and just sit. I think it should be made into a museum or saved in any condition. If you are as upset as I am please make contact those responsible:

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency http://www.epa.state.il.us/

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency http://www.illinoishistory.gov/

Chief Mike Thompson of the Buffalo Fire Protection District
114 S
Wells Street
Buffalo, Illinois 62515

The property manager Jeremy Crouch with Heartland Trust in Forsyth

1401 Koester dr, Forsyth, IL 62535

Springfield-Sangamon County
Regional Planning Commission
200 South 9th Street – Room 212

Springfield, IL 62701
Phone: (217) 535-3110

A reporter working the case is Jackson Adams from the Illinois Times

jadams@illinoistimes.com