Dear Companions,

This was one of the largest fires in our area in a long time. Mount
Pleasant was the second alarm fire dept out of 8. We give alarms based
on how many other fire depts are requested which is different that the
way big cities do it. I think this was a 7 alarm fire. There was a loss
of 6000 hogs so far, more may die over the next couple of day do to
stress. It's bad enough moving around in the cold and wind chill but
then we also had to walk on the dead animals.

I was only inside, a few minutes as my job is air packs , refilling and
changing out bottles. Toward the third hour of the call I also delivered
15 pounds of donuts and 5 gallons of hot cocoa was was warmly received.
I ran through 36 bottles for our dept. We also gave the rural water
service coop a run for their money by partially draining one of their
water towers.

Joe