Another post in my series of reminiscing about old photos. But this one includes a public service message :-)
I photographed a lot of fires when I worked for a daily newspaper: house fires, vehicle fires, factory fires. Newspapers like fire photos because the colour grabs people’s attention.
Thankfully the number of serious fires has gone down over the years due to better built homes and sprinkler systems. But fatal fires still occur despite the existence of smoke detectors.
I was on the highway only two kilometres away so I arrived in minutes. It surprised me that no one on that busy highway bothered to stop and help. But this is normal for Toronto.
There was a guy sitting on the guardrail, perhaps five metres ahead of the burning truck. He had his arms around himself and was hunched over in a ball. He said he was the driver, no one else was in the truck and he was unhurt. But it was obvious he was in shock. I helped him move further away from the truck and sat with him until emergency services arrived.
Several months later, a firefighter mentioned to me that the guy gave up driving.
