Packing House fire (another fire thread!)

I just realized when I went to post this that there seems to be a lot of fire threads already, But I figure i'll post these anyway.

I don't know what started the blaze, But at around 7:30 there was a brownout where I live (About 2 km from the fire). And at 8:00 I decided to head on down and see if there was anything worth photographing.
the 80-200 af-s lens with the lens hood on, will pretty much guaruntee co-operation with the civilians (for getting on roofs and whatnot). But unfortunately I was still stuck very far away.
So heres a few shots

The Packing house (as its called) was rarely used and changed owners a couple months ago, And is basically a large wooden warehouse used to store local orchards fruits. Cause of the blaze at this time is unknown.



The strip mall about 40 metres away from the building


There was over 60 firefighters there (plus the RCMP). A lot of them were simply keeping the public from getting too close.


I guess this is more entertaining than what is on TV!




Heres my only real shot of the front of the building


Cries of "Save the Beer" were heard from around the Pub / liquor store, I have a feeling only half of them were joking. People's houses that were in the vicinity (including the one I was standing on) Were being evacuated and I saw numerous people carrying Computer towers and CD binders (backups I assumed) To cars in case it spread)


A sidelong view of the entrance to the warehouse.




The volunteer fire fighting program (they still get paid, in fact last i heard it was starting at 16.00 an hour CAD) is quite well respected and employed in this area, Probably because of the large amounts of logging companies that people depend on for their livelihood. (service sector in the area doesn't pay nearly as well, in fact below living wage for most of the employees)



Thanks for checking them out, I'm new to the whole photojournalism aspect, And was using my "sports" lens to take all of these. So comments are appreciated.

 

Thanks, I couldn't get any closer to get him in a shot with the fire, So I settled for a sillhouette (which I admittingly took about 20 shots of to get the exposure right on the sky and him!)
Camera metering is quite hard to nail for Fires, I never realized how much the smoke will throw the picture! I was at -2.3 EV for a lot of the pics!