Story 9. Millionairs Row.

Millionaires Row.

It was mid morning.
I was working on top of the ore body, marking cups with a felt pen to show the driller the depth he was to drill each hole.
We used Air-tracks to sink a 75mm diameter hole into the hard rock that contained the ore body.
Each hole was marked with an exact depth.
We drilled each hole to a floor profile as the top of the ore body undulated up and down often a meter or two like a miniature range of hills, most hole depths centered around 3mtrs deep plus or minus a meter or so variation as we made adjustments to followed the top profile.

I had been marking the shot for almost three hours and in need of relief, being in a remote part of the pit I simply stood at the edge of the ore body, flopped my member out and began pissing over the edge of the ore body, suddenly I noticed approaching me below and walking along the face of the ore body was Debby from the mine office catching me in full flow with my tool in hand.

"Millionaires row is on fire" she informed me seemingly ignoring my leaking member.
My mind engaged in pissing, cup marking and thinking only of floor profiles took a little time to understand what it was she was telling me.
Who? What? Millionaires Row? Fire? I questioned as I cut my relief short and shook off the last drops while attempting to act non fussed as I put my equipment away.

"Millionaires row is on fire" she repeated, going on to inform me all the mine staff had left the office to help fight it and I was now in charge of the pit.

I dropped what I was doing and headed out of the pit to see a plume of black smoke rising about two miles away in the direction of the single men's camp.
Shit, I thought, then noticed the small water cart heading toward me along the haul road at a great rate of knots.

I parked near the stand pipe and checked the overhead tank was full, it had a 14inch gate valve and when opened could dump 20,000ltrs of water into the water in just a minute or two, so long as the header tank was full.
The small water truck would only hold 2000 liters and under the pipe should only take a few seconds or less.
I turned on the pump that filled the top tank to top it up and not taking any chances left the over flow pipe open so the pump would keep the overhead tank constantly topped up.

Two workshop fitters were in the small vehicle and after working out it lacked brakes they finally brought it to a stop then after a few moments eventually found reverse in the old crash box and managed to park somewhere near the down pipe. I opened the valve the moment they stopped and had with water poring over the back of the vehicle quickly filled it using the hit and miss method of fulling their tank.

With a loud gnashing of gears they set off in a plume of blue smoke and splashing water from the tank.

I followed along and arrived at the camp to see fire billowing from the roof space along Millionaires Row, near where it joined Pussies Passage in a T junction.

Windows were open as the occupants of both Millionaires Row and Pussies were throwing their belongings out side, others had formed a convoy to pick up the belongings and carry them away to safety as the flames progressed.
It was a difficult fire to fight traveling along under the low tin roof the two water trucks were having difficulty getting at the seat of the flames as they attempted to stop its progress.

John Hollcroft approached me looking concerned, If it gets past Pussies passage there will be no stopping it from taking out the kitchen and wet mess along with Tinpan Alley and Skid Row he said.

The D9 dozer is ready to be picked up at the workshop I suggested,.we drove to the workshop, and in record time John was heading back to camp with 680 horsepower going flat out attached to 70 tons of unstoppable metal with attitude.

By the time we returned the fire had progressed into the roof of Pussies Passage.

To gain access to the fire the dozer easily pushed away the skid mounted laundry block severing the plumbing and water supply in the process. After quickly checking the rooms were empty the Dozer easily cut it's way completely though the building as he pushed Pussies Passage out of the away, separating the fire from the rest of the complex while unheeding occupants clambered out of the windows of the now highly mobile building.

With the fire now cut off from the main part of the complex I headed back to the mine to keep an eye on the pit and water supply.

A week or two later after the insurance company had visited I was given the task of cleaning up the sad looking site, many of the occupants had lost precious family treasures, irreplaceable photos of loved ones past. I found a tin full of two cent coins all molded together in one solid mass, the chassis of an expensive shortwave radio, all that remained was the metal of the chassis.
And while sweeping away the deep layer of ashes off the foundations I uncovered a large pile of photographs of various past and present employees in various stages of undress accompanied by one of the woman on site who was standing next to each topless, apart from smelling of fire the photos were mostly untouched, which couldn't be said for the woman in the pictures.