Shooting burning buildings
 

Hello,
I have a great script for an indie feature film, and it involves a story about volunteer firefighters.
I've talked with the possible team and we've agreed to try to prepare for it till Autumn 2009 (it's a very complicated script and requires a considerable budget).

The main technical and management problem however is that there have to be several scenes with a few burning country houses, and neither of us has any experience with this.

We're thinking of constructing a few carcases and then burning them ourselves, but maybe much of the work can be done with digital effects and green screen?

We would probably also have to get a permission from the local council and pay for a firefighter car on stand by if anything goes wrong.

How would you advise to prepare and proceed with this problem, any experience you can share?

Thanks!

Wait until the fire dept (any local fire dept, or maybe one in a favorable shooting location) is burning a building for training purposes. This happens once or twice per year for a reasonably sized department. The firefighters will already be there and suited up, so you could conceivably cut your budget for the sequence by 50% or better.

Wow, thanks for this advice, I didn't know that they do that!