Jared Lee - Photo Album - Gustavus - Spring '05 - Tree Fire - 041805

Your browser has disabled scripting - some functions of this album will not be available. Please check your browser configuration and security settings for this site

One afternoon I was walking from Olin to the Caf and smelled and saw a little smoke, so I checked out where it was coming from, and surprisingly it was coming from the base of the oldest surviving tree on campus ... to my knowledge I'm one of two people to document this event photographically, I only saw one other person around there with a camera
April 18, 2005

01-SmokingTree Talk about a strange sight, a tree with smoke emanating from its base

02-SmolderingBase Smoldering base

03-TreeFire Tree fire ... at this point I was one of the first few people to notice it and be on the scene

04-Smoke Smoke

05-Burning The tree's clearly burning inside

06-BurningTree Nobody's really sure whether the fire started by arson or by the heat generated from rotting wood/organic material inside the trunk

07-OldTree The oldest tree on campus, afire

08-FiremenArrive Firemen from the St Peter Fire Dept arrive and get ready to put out the fire

09-Firehose Firehose

10-Spray Spraying the tree

11-Spraying Firemen spraying

12-Firemen Firemen outside Christ Chapel

13-Kicking Kicking the tree to see if it's rotten

14-Firemen Firemen, with a decent crowd gathering by Christ Chapel

15-Axes The firemen had to use some axes to chop away and find out if they'd indeed put out all the fire

16-Axes Hacking away

17-ChopChop Chop chop

18-HackingAway As you can see, they'd already taken a big chunk out of the trunk by this point

19-RottenTrunk As they suspected, the trunk was totally rotten, meaning the tree was not safe to remain standing

20-RottenBase Rotten base

21-Base Base of the tree

22-MoreWater Spraying in some more water just to be sure

23-MoreSpray More soapy spray

24-EmptyingHose Emptying the firehose

25-WhiteFoam White foam everywhere, what a mess

26-FoamCoveredFireman Firemen covered in foam

27-GapingHole Gaping hole in the tree

28-Zoom Zooming in further

29-Mess What a mess

30-Chunks Chunks of the old tree

31-OfficerEnglish Officer English taping off the area

32-OfficerEnglish Officer English

33-FireTruck Fire truck parked outside the Chapel

34-FireTrucks Fire trucks

35-CordonedOff The whole area around the tree, cordoned off

36-OldTree The old tree, making its last stand

37-SafetyHazard Warning tape

38-DickFuller That evening, Dick Fuller gave his annual special lecture on the Manhattan Project, which was fascinating as always ... I heard it four times in my four years there, and I always learned tons of new stuff each time I heard it

39-CuttingDown Gustavus didn't waste any time, as by the next morning they were already at work taking down the tree

40-TreeRemoval Removing the oldest tree on campus

41-TreeRemoval Tree removal outside the Chapel

42-TrunkOnly Later in the morning, only the main trunk is left ... what a depressing picture

43-NoMoreTree No more tree

44-Stump Only the remnants of the stump is left

45-NoMoreTree No more tree ... the landscape on that part of campus totally changed

46-TreelessView Treeless view of the Minnesota River valley