A heavy blanket of snow lay across the fields in rural Iola Wednesday morning. Not long after 7 a.m. David Greathouse emerged from his isolated farmhouse southwest of town to see two columns of smoke billowing out of his nearby garage.
Earlier that morning, Greathouse, in an effort to heat the outbuilding, fed a small amount of hedge into a small wood burning stove. He had a row of chainsaws laid out in the garage, which he planned to sharpen in preparation for a day of cutting timber with a few friends.
“I came out and the smoke was already rolling,” said Greathouse, on Wednesday, as he watched the flames from the mostly contained fire climb up into the lower branches of a towering, century-old hardwood tree. “I got inside the building. I have a molding rack in there, up above, and there were a couple of pieces of that that were on fire, but the whole place was full of smoke. I started trying to drag stuff out, but the smoke knocked me down for a second, it took all my air. I kept trying to go back in and get stuff but I couldn’t get very much. Everything I’ve got to make a living is in there.”
Greathouse owns a general contracting business in Iola and guesses that $30,000 to $40,000 worth of equipment was destroyed in the blaze. Multiple sanders, routers, grinders, a shop vac, generators, HVAC equipment, air compressors and an antique dresser he was repairing for a friend. The father of two had no insurance.
“With Christmas and all the other stuff right now, I couldn’t afford to keep the insurance on it. I guess you can’t afford not to either, obviously.”
Iola firefighters were met with an impasse Wednesday when a valve on the rural fire truck broke and leaked a quarter-tank of water into Greathouse’s driveway, completely emptying their supply, forcing the attending rescue personnel, as well as Greathouse, to watch the flames swirl through the small structure until a water tanker arrived to replenish the effort.
During the ensuing lull, Greathouse, out of frustration, he claimed, ignored firefighters’ advice and approached the burning garage. He pulled a small generator from the edge of the fire, and a mountain bike. He disconnected a four-wheeler from its trailer and pushed the ATV clear of the flames.
At one point he turned his own garden hose on the fire, to minimal effect.
The pewter sky was low Wednesday and drew a cold wind in from the south. The thick cloud of gray smoke turned black as it moved through a small lean-to adjacent the garage and onto a pile of tires. The entire outline of a narrow wooden ladder leading up to a tree house glowed orange, like an ember, and a plastic yellow slide descending from the playhouse twisted in the heat.
Greathouse had packed his 5-year-old son off to school only moments before the fire erupted.
“I lost a lot in that fire,” said Greathouse later Wednesday afternoon. “It wasn’t that big of a garage, but it was packed. Four to five years of slowly gathering equipment. It was my livelihood. Hopefully I can come out of this, maybe still have a business.”
Contractor’s ‘livelihood’ destroyed in garage fire
