hreatening Boat Fire

ome time ago Baron Von Lodge was the head of a small country near Switzerland known as Lilliland.

One evening, the Baron and his fiancée were having a late dinner at Lilliland Castle. It was a quiet, candlelit romantic dinner with just the two of them not having a care in the world except for each other. All was right with the world, they thought.

They noticed a light that was gleaming brighter than the soft flow from the fireplace. It was getting larger and brighter with each passing moment. They both looked up and noticed that it was coming from Lilliland Lake just outside the window. It was like a fireball moving slowly toward the dock at Lady Angela’s Alpine Castle. The fire alarm rang and the Baron was notified that someone on a sailboat let a cooking fire get out of control and was burning the entire boat.

While the boat was at anchor in the middle of the lake, it was noticed that the boat broke loose and was drifting toward Alpine Castle.

The Baron quickly contacted the lake patrol to keep the boat out in the middle of the lake and not let it come near the shore where the building could catch fire as well.

A skilled patrol officer attached a line to the broken anchor line and began to tow the boat back out to the middle of the lake. The wind and the lake tide were working against his efforts. But slowly, the fiery boat was dragged back to the middle of the lake. All boat hands were safely ashore and no one was left on the boat.

The boat was burned too much to put the fire out so it was left to burn itself out in a short time.

A follow-up investigation revealed that the sailboat was a rental and that the people on board did not have the expertise to cook safely. The Baron said to the boat rental company that they should not rent to people unless someone from their staff was on board to supervise. Lady Angela could have lost Alpine Castle if the fire had not been controlled at the last minute.

Lady Angela then hired a staff member to keep a watchful eye on activities on the lake to guard against this ever happening again. It would be very difficult to replace her beloved Alpine Castle that her ancestors built so many years ago.