A neighborhood restaurant featured in an earlier blog post suffered a fire yesterday when the cook took the wrong approach in cleaning the vent ducting above the stove. (Note to other cooks: using fire to burn away accumulated grime in vertical ducting works very well only if you consider the rest of the building to be “accumulated grime”.)
The fire explains why helicopters were hovering directly over our place for a while yesterday. (Hovering helicopters are apparently not good news in Japan. The last time helicopters were buzzing around, two weeks ago, it was due to a keeper at the nearby Kyoto Zoo having been mauled to death by a tiger when he apparently neglected to properly close a door before cleaning a cage. Yikes.)
The fire was yesterday afternoon, but I didn't hear about it until the evening when Fumie saw it on the news. So this morning, I stopped by after dropping Anthony off at school. Oddly, there were 20+ firemen milling about, mostly, according to the red bands on their sleeves, fire investigators.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fire Investigators
Just as I was arriving, the two fire trucks that were there started to leave, and although I have no experience with photojournalism, it doesn't take much thought to know that a big red fire truck can add interest to a photo of a fire-damaged building, so I took a shot as it pulled away...
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 30 mm — 1/250 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Obligatory Fire Truck
(I took lots of fire-truck pictures on my very first outing with my Nikon D200, two and a half years ago.)
One person suffered from smoke inhalation, but otherwise no one was hurt. I'm sure that the fire department arrived on the scene quickly, considering that there's a fire station less than 100 yards away!
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
View of the Fire Station
from the scene of the restaurant fire
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/1000 sec, f/4.5, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Kyoto Fire Department”
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/125 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/640 sec, f/4.5, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Fire Investigation”
This area, where the Biwako Canal turns north, has proved photogenicly fruitful for my blog, although usually for more pleasant reasons than today. Here are the photos that have appeared in earlier posts that were taken within 100 yards of the front of the restaurant (among those that have been geoencoded, that is), sorted, as accurately as the localized randomness of GPS receivers allow, in nearest-first order:
Had I been drinking milk, your “Note To Other Cooks” would have made it come out my nose.