Emerald Downs Burning

When I got up this morning I figured I would watch some TV then head to Colfax Fire to hang out for the morning. I had to be in Pullman by four in the afternoon. But that changed when I heard D-Twelve get toned out to assist Pullman Fire with a structure fire. I thought about it for a minute to think if it was a training or real. But the address they gave I knew it was not training. So I called the Deuce to see if they still needed reserves to respond.

Reed was there and he said we was waiting for someone else to come to take Rescue to the scene. I went to Pullman and we went en route. Once on scene we got rehab set up and I was told to fill air bottle. Oh joy! Not what I wanted to do. The fire was the Emerald Downs, a new apartment complex. It covered three apartments in one building that was under construction.

What the fire looked like when the police got on scene.

Engine Thirty-Two laying in a supply line.

We got the fire knocked down. Rescue stayed after to help with the investigation. We were there for about four hours. Reed and I helped draw out the building and the apartment layouts. We also helped do grunt work including photographing stuff.

When we were done we went to station one to clean up some equipment. When we were pulling into the station it was almost five-thirty in the evening. We got called to a fire alarm. We were already in our turn-outs so we went up to the scene with Engine Thirty-Two. We went inside with Turpin. It turned out to be a pull station. We reset it and went back to the station.

I went to get into my uniform for being on duty. I was on engine tonight. Chuck and I went to the store to get stuff for dinner. When I was backing him into a place at Dissmores I could smell gas. So I looked around and I saw it leaking out of a truck box. So I went over to it and saw a gas can and tipped over. I righted the can. We put absorbent on the gas spill. We called for Engine Thirty-Two for more absorbent. Turpin joked that we are busy enough without us going out and looking for stuff to do.

Once we mitigated that scene we got our food and went to the station to cook it. We all sat down to eat. We had a good time. It was also good food. We had BBQ chicken, tater tots, salad, and ice cream for dessert.

After dinner Chuck and I did our Engine daily checks. We found a few problems, including low air on some SCBA tanks. We took them down to station one to top the off as well as topping of Engine Thirty-Three’s water tank.

When we finished with that we went back to the Deuce. Reed and watched Rescue Me. I went home shortly after midnight. I was tired, but I decided to work on the website for the department for a little bit. I got pictures from the live burn put up as well as an old set of pics from the stair climb that some reserves did a few years ago.