Branford Bike: Big Creek Fire, Emigrant, Montana, Mike Adkins Excavation

Mike guides a John Deere excavator down the driveway

August 24th, 2006
I felt grateful to be alive but deeply saddened to bear witness to the burial of my home and business. Mike and Jack used a John Deere excavator and bulldozer to peel away the remains of my home, the garage and Branford Bike from the soot covered, coal black earth. Over the course of the day, Mike and Jack loaded the remains onto dump trucks, whose next stop was the local landfill.

Mike deftly pulled the garage roof and steel walls away so I could search for anything salvageable. I found nothing but more ash in the garage. Not a single charred book nor a useable bike part survived the blast furnace inferno. Even the thick aluminum snow plow was half melted. Nothing was spared.

The excavator tears into the garage

After lunch Jack turned the excavator towards the concrete lined fire pit that once housed Banford Bike. Like Mike, he carefully pulled away the heavier wreckage and then allowed me to search for goods in the ashes. Partially melted Campagnolo crank arms littered an area that used to be a storeroom. Nearby a rusting teapot from the 1st floor kitchen rested on the basement floor. I carefully poked through the rubble. All I could salvage were a few burnt baby spoons. Everything else was destroyed.

Melted Campagnolo cranks and a tea pot

The walls come down...

By late afternoon the remains of my home, Branford Bike and the garage were loaded onto trucks and hauled away. I picked up a few melted crank arms and buried them under the old garage. I saved a couple of other items that I will bury under the foundation of the new house. A new home will rise from the ashes of my old home; my castle. I will call it "Phoenix Castle" after the mythological bird that first rose from the ashes.

I surveyed the wreckage that was my dream home in the mountains. I worked for 30 years before I could afford to live in such a beautiful place. I wiped a tear and said good-bye to what once was. Now it was time to dream again; to dream of what life could be like in the future. I did not want to get drawn into the bitterness of what my life could have been like if the fire did not happen. It happened; I saw, felt and tasted every horrible moment. Now it was over and it was time to move on with my life. As I slowly walked back to the log cabin I was staying at, I mourned for all that was lost but started to dream of all that could be. Tomorrow, the sun and I would rise together. A new day and a new life would begin.

Concrete rubble and twisted steel