Interesting Saturday Night

We were sitting in the living room, watching TV, deciding whether to go to bed or watch a movie, online (we really know how to rock a Saturday night, eh?) when we heard a "boom" rattle the windows. Initially, I'd processed it as the house next door's front door slamming. This struck me as odd, given that the previous tenants had moved out a few days ago. I noticed a car with Maryland plates parked out front. This seemed suspicious, so, we called the EMS non-emergency dispatch number to see if they could send a car by to check things out.>/p>
As I was standing on the front porch, I noticed a strange pickup truck sitting across the street with white smoke curling out the windows. Initially I thought, "some idiot decided to park on my street to hit a doob. If they're smart, they'll notice I'm on the phone and roll out before the cops get here and really didn't think much further of it.
Apparently, the boom we'd heard wasn't from next door. Apparently, something had exploded inside the truck's cab and the smoke was the interior burning. Wasn't until another neighbor, woken by what had turned out to be the truck going "boom", decided to investigate the smoking truck. He walked over, jiggled on the door and it popped open. Thick, white smoke came billowing out. With the sudden influx of fresh air, the smoking interior became a firey interior. So, I informed the dispatcher I was on the phone with that they probably needed to treat this as a 911 fire call.
A little less than five minutes later, Fairfax County police cars started rolling up. One officer pulled an extinguisher out of his car and attempted to extinguish the fire that was now licking up from where the hood and windshield meet. It didn't work.
A minute or so later, the fire trucks rolled up. A fireman walked up, fully fitted out with helmet, fire clothing and oxygen mask and opened the door, fully. Fire came billowing out.
Unfortunately, my camera's ability to cope with the bright light of the fire against the dark of the night meant I couldn't get good photos of the fire. It was pretty much just an orange flare in the center of the image. After they got the fire knocked down, I was able to take the below picture.

EMS are still outside dealing with the aftermath. I imagine, once they've determined the fire is fully out, they'll flatbed the truck away.
If you're from Manassas (cop that came up asked if we'd seen it before since it was registered to a Manassas address) and missing a big, white crew-cab pickup truck, I think I know where it might have gotten left (and, presumably, set on fire by whoever boosted it). Fairfax County Police Department will be able to tell you where to go pick up the burnt-out husk. Hopefully, your insurance company totals it: I know I wouldn't want it back, at this point.

Life in the Sticks

I read articles of righteous indignation and am rarely surprised. I find myself unsurprised by the professionally-outraged nor by the inevitable and eminently predictable comments such articles spawn.

What makes it all so inevitable and predictable? Ignorance. The professionally-outraged earn their sheckles by being outraged. The commenters are generally people seeking to be outraged so that they can vent their righteous indignation and bile. None are really seeking to think or do anything beyond feeling a knee-jerk emotion. And, invariably, the articles and commentary are based on a very limited view of the outrageous situation.

Life in unencorporated areas carries risks. Heavy on the risks are lack of proximity to EMS. Often times, what EMS there is is either purely voluntary or, as in this case, "subscription" based. Again, that's if there's any EMS to be had, at all. It's been this way since before the founding of the country. What works in cities, suburbs and commuter-communities "in the country" just doesn't work in areas of extremely low population densities. It works even less well as the cost of providing EMS goes ever skyward.

Firetrucks and ambulances typically cost six-figures for used equipment. Training for staffs can only be ammortized over a small groups of citizens. Insurance costs, which our litigious society has made increasingly necessary and ever more costly, have to be born by a much smaller pool of contributors.

And, speaking of the issue of insurance, providing service to people who haven't paid their "subscription" can be grounds for an EMS unit losing their insurance coverage - either by straight-up revocation or because their rates became untenable after doing so. So, yeah, it was "heartless" of those mean firemen to standby and do nothing. However, it would have been even more "heartless" for them to have done something that would have cost their entire services-subscribing community from losing their fire services.

Do I think Glen Beck & Co. are utter douchebags for kicking the Cranicks while they are down? Yup, sure do. Do I think the fire department did wrong? Nope: not under the conditions they have to operate under.