During the Tournament of Roses Parade this morning in Pasadena, California, the float in front of the Lincoln-Way Marching Band from New Lenox, Illinois, caught fire and had to be towed out of the parade route. No one was hurt and the band kept marching, the Associated Press reports.
Initial reports stated that the band was “on” the float, but those stories were quickly corrected. Marching bands with 280 students in them don’t ride on floats in parades. The band is so large because it combines students from the three high schools in Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210: Lincoln-Way East, Lincoln-Way Central, and Lincoln-Way West. Directors combined forces following the closure of Lincoln-Way North High School in 2016.
The fire actually made the trip to California more memorable for band members. They and their friends can “laugh about the float that caught on fire and how we just kept on marching,” the AP quoted band member Madisen Tomaszewski as saying.
Damage from wildfires in California continues to rise as global temperatures increase, causing an increase in evaporation of moisture from the surface. As of November, for example, the deadliest wildfire in California history had either destroyed or damaged all nine campuses in the Paradise Unified School District as well as six charter schools. The fire was contained, but hundreds of people were unaccounted for in the aftermath.
No laughing matter about the wildfires.
