A fireball rises from an explosion at the scene of a structure fire at 526 W. Chicago Ave. in East Chicago, Ind., Saturday, March 9, 2013. The initial fire call came in at 4:33 pm. The fire eventually spread to a neighboring building to the east.

Just as I was leaving home last Saturday afternoon en route to the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater concert in Chicago (for a rare evening out as a spectator only), I stepped outside to smell the unmistakably heavy odor of a burning building. Anyone who’s ever experienced a structure fire in person knows exactly what I’m referring to. It’s a smell that immediately latches onto your hair, your skin, your clothes, and anything else you might have on you if you’re unfortunate enough to get caught in the smoke plume.

Remembering that I’d heard fire trucks pass by about 30 minutes prior, I decided to take a little detour and see if I could find the incident. It didn’t take long to discover an entire building completely engulfed in flames just a few blocks away. After returning home for my gear, I made a quick call to my photo editor at The Post-Tribune to let him know of the situation, and to tell him to expect my images. I worked the scene from a variety of vantage points and angles, including a great one high atop a new overpass just to the east of the fire.

Spectators quickly accumulated with cell phones clutched at the ends of outstretched arms, giving police a workout to maintain order in the intermediate area. Watching and listening to peoples’ reactions who’d gathered behind the barricades made watching the fire seem like a spectator sport. Is this response a primal reaction where human beings are somehow attracted to watching fire? Is it simply the interest of a spectacle shattering the ho hum everyday routine? Either way, I was right there with everyone else, documenting one of the largest fires I’ve shot here in East Chicago in the past eight years.

The front side of the fire scene, where several conjoined buildings share a common facade.

This is an uncropped sequence of one of the large explosions I photographed from the overpass on the east side of the fire. At the time, I was looking away from the scene for a new vantage point to shoot from when I heard the explosion go off. I quickly lifted my Canon 1D Mark IV and