Last of the fire cleanup

I thought I'd put up a few pictures of the last of the fire cleanup. The brother of a contractor Beaux used to work for offered to clean up the mess for $1500, which would come out of the money for the recovered metal. It sounded like a pretty good deal, so we said sure!

There was quite a big mess to clean up! They brought out a dumptruck, front-end loader/backhoe, and a big trailer.

Piles of debris and some smoke from fires started with the cutting torch.

Separating the metal out from the ashes and debris.

They dug a 14-foot deep hole and buried all the debris...it was mostly ashes anyway.

They collected 7000 pounds of metal! Unfortunately, the price of metal has nosedived to less than $.05/pound. They only got $149 for the lot.

This is how it looked when they were done. The site is pretty much cleared off.

One final note. There used to be a metal storage shed next to the trailer. There are plenty of pictures showing it. In the building were the only remaining things my sons had left, including Beaux' saxaphone mouthpiece from 7th grade and a dresser with some clothes, pictures, and other personal items.

A week or so after the fire, an individual, who I am not going to name because of the ongoing investigation, showed up with a trailer, loaded up the building, and took it home. He did not have permission to do this, and simply thought he could get away with it. The building had figured prominently in divorce proceedings, and the judge's decree specified that Beaux was to keep it.

When we contacted the Sheriff's Department, and they interviewed the neighbors, they all gave consistant descriptions of the truck, the trailer, and the two older "gentlemen" who had the cajones to do this in the middle of the day. One even thoughtfully provided a license plate number.

I understand that this individual has retained an attorney who is maintaining that the building is his property. He knows this is a lie, I know this is a lie, and the Sheriff's Dept. knows this is a lie. What kind of a person steals from someone whose house has just burned down?

Not only are his actions absolutely disgusting, but they will probably negatively affect his step-daughter who works in law enforcement. I certainly hope so, since she had to know about it at the time. I doubt he cares about that though.

I sure hope he enjoys "his" metal building...while he can.

Haven't forgotten about it...

Just been really really busy. I'll post more soon.

Fire cleanup

I went out at lunchtime today to shoot a few pictures of the cleanup effort where Beaux' trailer was. The metal framework is pretty much all cut into managable pieces, and is ready to be loaded up and hauled off for scrap. Everything else (pretty much just ashes and some wood scraps) will be buried.


This is just a view from the end where Patrick's room was, looking toward where Beaux' room was.

I'm standing in the kitchen. That is the furnace in front of me. Using a cutting torch causes lots of small fires, so there is some smoke.

This is a 12" steel I beam. A cutting torch makes short work of it!

Notice how wavy the I-beams are from the fire. Trailers burn pretty hot!

Beaux' computer. Patrick's looks a lot like this....

Beaux taking a break from cutting metal.

We found a beaten up and burned powder horn. I think it was a gift from the boy's grandparents some years back. It was probably old...

Patrick's cast iron frying pan. After I clean it up, and reseason it, you will never know.

Cutting some metal up. This was part of the front porch.