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The video above is from a fire yesterday (Thursday) in North Hollywood, California.
I’m the last person to tell you it’s not okay to shoot video of a fire. But when you see a man struggling to keep a house from burning, should pulling out the smartphone to take pictures be your initial instinct?
According to the description with the video, there’s something positive to tell you:
A good Samaritan quickly hopped the locked gate and begin hosing down the embers on the structure preventing the house from catching on fire.
And it appears one of the six or so other men seen in the video runs up to help. The others just watch, with at least three of them believing capturing the memory of the fire is the priority.
Here’s a memory of another fire that I like much better. In 1961, when the garage of the Baltimore County, Maryland home pictured below burned, the men in the neighborhood had it extinguished by the time firefighters from the Woodlawn Volunteer Fire Company arrived. How do I know this? Because the house then belonged to my wonderful next door neighbors the Cohens.
I was in first grade when that fire occurred, but that image of the neighbors doing their best to deal with the emergency in front of them remains almost 56 years later. This video from California makes me wonder what impression today’s six-year-olds will be carrying with them for a lifetime.
LAFD description of the North Hollywood fire:
Structure Fire; 12:29PM; 12010 W Califa St; https://goo.gl/maps/XKvPWKASv2p; North Hollywood; KNOCKDOWN; Initial reports of a Tree Fire, upgraded to a Structure Fire. 37 firefighters in 14 minutes extinguished an Auto Fire with exposures to brush off the 170 freeway, 1 palm tree and a 1 story single family dwelling. The diligent firefighting efforts of the LAFD prevented the fire from spreading to the house. No reported injuries. NFD. Inc772; FS 60; Batt 14; Valley Bureau; Council District 2; E260 T60 RA860 RA60 E89 T89 E289 E102 E278 T78 BC14 BC5 ; CH9; 17; Sean Saunders
