Driving home we came upon a truck pulling a boat on a trailer. Unfortunately the right hand wheel bearing on the trailer had failed catastrophically, allowing the wheel on that side to part ways with the trailer. Gravity quickly influenced the trailer and convinced it to just set the right side of the trailer on the highway. As it happened the highway was moving (relative to the trailer) some 60 miles per hour, resulting in a huge shower of sparks when it contacted the trailer. Some of these sparks took up residence in the grassy ditch along the highway and quickly started to reproduce.
I was once involved in a grass fire. They are amusing things to observe, especially when they have been ignited by someone else. I grabbed a fire extinguisher that I saw bolted to a bracket in the boat, and ran back to the fire to join the owner of the boat who was already there with an extinguisher. You know those little 1 or 2 pound extinguishers many people keep in their kitchens? They will effectively extinguish about 10 to 20 square feet of grass fire.
I was just about to ask someone to run into town and grab some hot dogs when some guys dressed as firemen showed up. Part of their Halloween costume was a couple of trucks with water tanks and hoses. They quickly ruined the fine grass fire we were enjoying.
I wish I had gotten photos while the fire was still going, but I was too busy testing the effects of a fire bottle smaller than a bottle of Coke on a prairie fire.
This is what it looked like as we were leaving. I was in the right place to help keep the fire from spreading back to the disabled truck and boat:
/rl
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