Irony Writ Small

What's the definition of irony? I guess it depends upon the circumstances. Sometimes it can be profound and other times fanciful, or even foolish.

In this case I'm not talking about something with national or international implications. I'm not talking about something that will show up on YouTube (though I wish I was). This time around, it was something local and something to which those involved with the event I am about to relate will likely be living down for quite some time.

Our town hosts a fire training ground that is used by a number of fire departments here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. In fact, our town had just handed the scheduling, maintenance, and upkeep of the training facility to our regions Fire Mutual Aid organization.

This past Tuesday one of our neighboring towns used the facility, and particularly what is called a burn house, for training. Once finished, the firefighters packed up and returned to their station.

A few hours later our fire department was called out to the training facility to extinguish a now fully involved structure fire. The facility was deemed a total loss.

Ironic, indeed – a fire department causes a fire that burns down a fire training facility.