Citizen journalists often leave out the who, what, when, where & why. But Dave tracks down another generic house fire.

Maybe it’s my background as a reporter that makes me sensitive to this issue, but I can’t understand why someone goes to the trouble of sharing with the world via YouTube video of a neighbor’s house burning or some other event and doesn’t bother to tell anyone where it occurred. Often you will see something like, “There was a fire on my block overnight” without the person even posting what state they live in, much less the street, county or city. This video is another one of those generic house fires that I have to try and figure out. That’s what I did this morning while my family slept in our hotel room in Hot Springs, South Dakota.

The main clue on this one is the W.F.F.D. on the two pumpers, Engine 1 and Engine 3.  Was it the Wake Forest Fire Department? How about the West Frankfort Fire Department? What about the Westview-Fairforest department? Could it be the Wappingers Falls Fire Department? It was  none of the above.

A check of the websites and a look at apparatus photos brought me to the conclusion that this was from Texas and the Wichita Falls Fire Department. After that I found an article at timesrecordnews.com with details on this fire. It occurred last Monday morning and left a resident burned.  Neighbors reported hearing an explosion.

I guess I really do like the challenge of tracking these down. Thanks for listening. I feel better now.