A Photographer’s Brush with Fire | Alexandria Massive Fire!

Today, I was actually in the area after doing a couple’s shoot in DC, and saw this massive pillar of black smoke around 11:45am.  It was almost like I was being mesmerized by a powerful force, and couldn’t look away.  It was scary but fascinating…a chilling personal experience I will never forget.  I’m actually glad I was at the right place at the right time!

I found a  small adjoining neighborhood street and drove to a nearby hilltop to see if I could get a view of the fire.  There were already a handful of local neighbors gathered on a lawn watching, wondering, and worrying about this fire.  This was my first real close huge fire experience!  We weren’t really that close, but you could hear the roar of the flames (it sounded like a twister or a train…with some extra crackle) and a few times we heard a few explosions, as well as falling debris and structure collapsing.  Every few moments, there was a large burst of flames, which you could see through the trees from where we were.  There was a few times where we saw some large debris still on fire blown up into the air by the shear force from the flow of smoke coming from the fire.  Because there was also a lot of wind, the fire was pretty strong and it was actually quite fascinating how fast the smoke was rising.  It was like watching the rapids in a river…only flowing upward.

I must have been up on that hill for a good hour at least…and waited till the smoke was starting to clear to a lighter gray.  One of the men standing there said you could see the fire on the doplar radar, there was so much smoke!  The fire must have worked pretty fast, because it brought a whole 5 story apartment complex (that was in the middle of construction) down within a short period!  Now that’s power.

> > And you know what?  I’ll tell you the guys who are always under-appreciated…is those amazing fire fighters!!!  THOSE guys are our every day heros who risk their lives, and save countless lives every week, while putting their own at risk!  Those guys deserve alot more credit and appreciation than the general public gives them.  THANK YOU GUYS!

HERE’S A VIDEO OF THE SOUNDS WE HEARD DURING OUR EXPERIENCE UP THERE!