Video footage will be available here later today

At approximately 5:00 Monday morning, as I looked out my balcony door to view the clouds from the west, I noticed thicker, grey plumes billowing from the north.
"The cold front," was my first thought as I recalled the previous weather reports. Yet this looked somewhat different. I decided to step outside to see what the day held, and that is when I first saw the plumes were billows which could only be coming from a singular place nearby. Thick grey, they slowly turned to black curls which erupted into a glowing fireball which enveloped and grew above the tree line. There was no longer question as to what had happened ... and confirmed by a passing motorist... the elevator had caught fire.
My call to 911 assured that fire crews were already on the scene, so my next call was to Robert Primmer, my business partner to make the video camera ready because I would be there in 3 minutes to pick him up. He was ready when I arrived, and we hurried to the scene where fire crews were busied soaking portions of the elevator and the surrounding buildings. Thick fire hoses were strewn across the roadways while ladder trucks were focusing the flows of water.
"It would be nice if it was raining," I remarked.
Bob replied that at least the wind was not up.
We began filming the crowds of onlookers, the emergency crews plying their training, and perimeters being set up. The ground by the radio station was littered with blackened ash where we first set up. We decided that it might be better if we were upwind of the drift so we would be out of the way of the emergency crews and any unexpected gusts.
We set up our camera at the empty lot kitty-corner from the Pioneer Credit Union, spoke with a few onlookers - then watched as the elevator leaned, then fell towards the railway tracks.
The first person I recalled at this point was Daniel, and the efforts he and others put in to preserve our mark of history - including the sitting on the top of that same elevator.
It was unfortunate, Daniel, but your efforts are never a waste when the cause is noble.
"Hot weather, grain residue, and no one to open the doors for ventilation," one onlooker remarked as to the possible cause of this fire.
There were heads shaking, but a prevailing sense of inevitability that past goes to the past - and maybe there are possibilities in the phoenix that arises out of these ashes.

Hats off to the emergency crews who knew how to steer the course of the fire and assist its fall into empty land rather than the open road on the other side.