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INFERNAL
INCINERATOR INCIDENT
by F. Bruce Ryan (53-55,56)
Up | The Army Trucks | Camp Seven | Camp Seven A | Canoe Building | Chief's Paddle Award | HSR Awards: Then and Now | HSR Songs 1981 | Infernal Incinerator | Keith Whiten Memorial Award | Leaving | Lost Kennabi Cabin | Purple Bead Award | Supervisor's Award Recipients | Steam Train | The Victoria Railroad Co.
In those early days the Sanitary
Engineer (garbage collector) circled the lake in his 16’ flat-bottomed
skiff, powered by an 8.1 h.p. Johnson outboard motor. Campers placed
their waste at the end of the dock and the collector dumped it into one
of the 45 gallon steel drums standing in his boat. At H.Q. the drums
were transferred to an army truck and carted to the dump, on the north
side of the road, up at the Mill Site. In 1953 and 1954 Rene Marmoreo
(53-54) circled the lake and Al Moore (47-54) drove to the dump.
I was not involved.
I believe the incinerator
arrived in 1954. Actually it was half of an old underground steel gas tank
removed from a service station. It sat like a giant pail in the middle of
the open ground between Kennabi Lodge and the storage building. It was
about ten feet in diameter and stood about ten feet high. This huge bucket had a hinged fire door that could be used as an access
to set the fire or clean out the ashes. Slab-wood from a mill (probably
Art Parish’s) would be set in a pyramid fashion ready to be lit.
The truck was still needed to move the 45 gallon drums from dock to incinerator,
where two men lifted and dumped them over the rim. The garbage, and
even the slab-wood, could be rather damp at times. To aid ignition
Al or Rene would dump a cup of coal oil (Kerosene) over the top, move the
truck and then throw a torch over the rim. Swoosh! The fuel
drums were at the shore nearby, about halfway between the storage building
and the Lodge. They were handy for the firelighters, but a little
too close for comfort (probably less than 100 feet). I believe Al, at
some point switched to gasoline for better results. These two practicing
pyromaniacs started to extend the time between dumping the gasoline and
throwing the torch. The few seconds added, gave the fuel more time
to vaporize and consequently made each swoosh slightly louder than the
previous one. I shudder to think that I shared my night out each
week with these two clowns. I was not involved in this operation.
One fateful day something
went awry. The scene was set, the truck was moved and the torches
were tossed up, and clear of the rim. Now perhaps a few extra cups
of gasoline had found their way into that enormous bucket. Perhaps
the torch toss was delayed even longer than ever before. Perhaps
Al didn’t tell Rene that he had increased the fuel quantity. Perhaps
Rene didn’t tell Al that he was going to delay the toss so very, very long.
Who knows? Why they do!
That torch may indeed have
cleared the rim, but I am quite sure that it never fell into the incinerator.
The container full of fumes exploded with a giant roar. The torch
shot upward along with a host of projectiles in a column of flame from
the muzzle of that huge mortar. Everything rose some 30 feet or more
above the ground, before they fanned out in all directions amidst a cloud
of smoke. Things had certainly gone askew for those two characters.
The missiles: cans, bottles, containers, discarded vegetables, peelings
etc., all rained down amidst burning papers, cardboard boxes and even pieces
of cloth. To think that I shared my night out with these guys for
two summers!
The ground was littered with
garbage. There was debris on the roof of Bunkie, in the trees bordering
the swamp and on the roof of the storage building. Some debris had
landed in the first of the three Queens (lifeboats) tied at the main dock. There was even garbage floating between that dock and the motor boat slips. The scene was both unsightly and odorous.
I do not remember any order
to clean up, but the entire staff pitched in that day. I do recall
standing on the bow deck of a Queen with a pike pole, trying to fish garbage
out of the lake and thinking how lucky we were that our fuel dump had not
caught fire. I, of course, was an innocent observer of this pyrotechnic
fiasco. ...not all that innocent.
What would I have done had
I been assigned to aid my two colleagues in their endeavour? Would
I have used extra fuel and/or delayed the torch toss? “Perhaps, ...Possibly,
...Probably, ...No! ... Positively.”
I simply cannot recollect
my friends being put on the carpet. Perhaps the Warden’s silence
said it all. Who in their right mind would repeat this event?
Who would really need to be told how dangerously close we had come to a
real disaster? Who would have ever suggested that J.C. was not wise?
His silence said it all.
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