MEEKER I Potential calamity was averted when John Wix successfully extinguished a fire Friday evening that had ignited a utility pole, threatening the power lines overhead.
Wix was burning grass and cattails in the ditch along east Market Street when the flammable creosote used in power poles caught fire. Coal tar creosote, the most common type used in the United States, is a gummy and extremely combustible substance, produced when coal is heated to produce…