Big Huge Fire

After nearly ten days without Internet access in my office I was ready to take whomever could get to me first and install something that worked. I worked the phones trying to get people who would listen to me and help me out. After having picked up my modem from UPS and installing it, the same thing was happening. But NU was worried about LP and I had to get to work on it, so I went to Taco Time for lunch and to sit there using the computer. I got a couple things done before I got a call from First Step Internet. I went back to my office and tried a couple things to no avail.

After sitting around for about two and a half hours I got work Verizon found the problem on their end, after days ago saying it was all good on their end. They would have it fixed in the morning. I said that was unacceptable. But the guy at FSR said it is normally a week turn around, so the fact I am getting it over night is pretty good. I was not impressed with all the other errors from Verizon. Later on I pulled in my DSL modem only to see it start to work. I got in more than a hundred e-mail messages and started to work on things that I had not gotten to get to.

I got into work on the LP stuff right away. But as I was working I heard Colfax out running a fire call. It was a grass fire that was getting away from them. They started to calling for other departments to come. As it turned out members and rig from every fire district in Whitman County showed up. But I was stuck getting my work done. I worked hard on it for a couple hours then when I finished I checked it in and took off for Colfax. I had called Jenny to see if people were still needed and she said yes.

When I got to Colfax there were a lot of people there. I went to the bay and got my wildland gear. I did not have pants yet so I figured I would wear my bunker bottoms. Even if I had pants I did not have boots. When I took my bunker bottoms off the rack I saw a set of bottoms for wildland. I tried them on and they fit. Then I saw a pair of boots over my stuff. I tried them on. They fit, but the metal toe was really tight and caused painful pressure points. I decided against my better judgment to wear them anyway.

Within minutes of getting my stuff on we were out the door. It was Matt, Zach, and I with Steve from the City driving us. We were heading into the fire ground. I was in awe. I have seen footage like that on the news before, but to see it in person was amazing. The hillside had one line zigzagging line of fire. Smoke was thick and there were spots of fires all over the place. It was dark outside and I could not see how bad the damage was, but I could see the fire. It was all around. It was making the area glow. It was almost over whelming. I have never been in a place like that. It was dark, I was surrounded by fire and it was so pretty. But I had no idea what I was going to have to do. I had my webgear and my fire shelter. I surely hoped I would not need to use that.

We went to the Chicken Ranch Road on the South Palouse River Road. We got out. My old coworker from IS, Dan was there with Rosalia fire. We chatting briefly. Steve did not take off right away because he did not want to leave us until we were assigned somewhere. We had only one radio channel being used and it was full. There was not time to talk. It was constant chatter. We tried several times to get out on the radio. But we were not able to reach command. Shortly thereafter my night started. A lady in a Suburban came by. At first I was annoyed because the road was filled with people driving around looking at the fire and it was hard for the fire apparatus to move around. I saw one grey truck was off the side of the road.

Anyway the lady rolled down her window and said that she thought the grain silo was on fire. We got in Steve’s truck to check it out, on our way there Clark got on the radio and said he had emergency traffic. He said the grain silo was on fire. We got there and the grey truck was still parked about twenty feet from the silo. It was in the collapse zone. I had found out it belonged to a firefighter from Colfax fire, Rick. It was being used by David who was doing rehab runs. He was trying to back out of the way for a big rig coming through and got it high centered on the back axle. A guy from Garfield Fire was there in his POV. He pulled out some chains and we were going to yank it out. But we needed to get inside. We were about to break the window when Rick’s son Eric came running up yelling that he had the key. He got in and we got it yanked out. While yanking it out the back wheel came about three feet off the ground. But it was out without incident.

We had some people from one of the agencies trying to put some water where the flames were coming out from the top of the silo. But it was not enough. After a couple minutes we had them back up and Elevator Command was established with Scott running it. I was with Scott on the West side of the Elevator. Several units were with us. There were several more units on the East side as well. We were waiting for spot fires or a collapse to fight the fire. We were there for a couple hours as it burned and slowly collapsed in on itself. At one point when the wall and floor gave out on one level a very large amount of grain started to fall from it onto the railroad tracks that were right next to it. There was a mound about ten feet high covering the tracks. When only about fifteen feet of the wall remained we figured it was pretty safe. There was no danger of it collapsing on the road. It was close to that time we learned about a train trestle that was fully involved.

Matt, Zach, and I jumped in Jeff’s truck and he drove us to the scene. On the way Zach was saying someone was asking him what squad he was from. We decided to name ourselves Squad Fifty-One after the TV show Emergency. We got on scene and the trestle was burning pretty heavily. We walked to the area where the fighting was going on. We were there for about twenty minutes and it became pretty clear that our efforts were in vain. The far side that was over the river was not going out and we could not get water on it. So they finally decided to stop fighting it and we were going to let it burn. We kept one tender truck there with a small pump. Squad Fifty-One was going to help fight spot fires. Jeff also stuck around. All other units cleared that scene and were reassigned.

For the next several hours we watched it burn and watched it start to fall apart and fall into the river. A bunch of reporters from the Daily Evergreen came by. They were taking a lot of photos and talking to us. They wanted to see this one large support beam fall. It looked like it was close to falling, but it was after three o’clock in the morning the most of them were ready to leave. So they took off and it was another hour or two before it actually fell.

I thought about a way to fight to save some of the trestle. Only half of it was in the river. The other half was over dry land where we could get to both sides. I thought that with people on both sides there we could fight it and save that part. I told my idea to Jeff and we went to look. He agreed with me. We decided what support beam set we were going to fight from. I called it the Alamo. We drew a line and we were going to fight to the end. Zach said we lost the Alamo. I said I know, we are going to fight to the end, like they did at the Alamo. We knew at the speed of the fire we had about an hour before we had to fight, so we talked to command and got two tenders and a pumper to come down and play.

With the time we had before fighting the fire we asked for some food from the Command Post. The Red Cross showed up with food and what-not. Scott came down with the food for all of us. We were able to get something to eat before it was show time.

The fire was getting closer, Command told us to be careful fighting a night-time operation. We got the unit coming and got ready to fight. We layed out the hose line and I went to the far side
of the trestle and started to wet down the supports and the beams. The fire got closer and closer. Other guys were on the other side putting water there. As the fire got closer Jim and I put down our goggles and put up the face from our coat. The heat was bad and it was still approaching. I was fighting to save the rest of the trestle and I was starting to worry a little bit about the heat and how long I could stay there. I only had a one-inch line and there was another one-inch line on the other side. The fire was slowed, but not stopped by us. Then Jeff showed up with a one and a half inch line. With his help we not only stopped the fire but fought it back. We ended up winning the Alamo and saving two extra trestles. D-Twelve showed up and got on top of the trestle and put foam and water on from the top side. For the next hour we kept spraying down the trestle supports and keeping the fire at bay. Soon it was not necessary to constantly fight. I kept an eye on the fire and sat down. My boots were hurting my feet in the toes area where it was really tight.

For the next couple hours I kept watch on my part of the trestle. I would spray water from time to time to keep the beams cool. Soon light was peaking over the hill and I could start to see all the blacken land. The fire had done a good job on burning things. A TV crew shows up and got some video of us in our operation. I was only holding a hose waiting to do something. Jim was standing next to me. I figured with us just standing around we would not be of much interest to put on the news. But I was wrong. We appeared on the news and on their website with the slide show.

Jim and I Watching the Trestle

Other Members of Squad Fifty-One Watch over the “Alamo”

Around seven in the morning I was getting pretty tired. We started to clean up and roll up our hose in anticipation of being relieved. It was only one more hour before we would get relieved with the new crews. But there was a communication break down. As the new crews went out they did not realize we were at the trestle. Clark showed up and said “this is where the missing engines and tenders where.” It was another thirty minutes before we were able to leave. So it was nearly ten in the morning when we got to the command post to fill out our paperwork and got some food. We were there for about thirty minutes getting everyone’s paperwork fill out.

Jim and I took Eleven-Zero-One to the station. We had to clean it up and spray out the radiator and air filter before we were cleared to leave.