Late afternoon on March 14th, Sullivan Fire Department was dispatched to an outside fire at the end of Longridge Lane off Hwy AF north of town….I had to look up that road name as I was not familiar with it and then headed that way. Chief Eric turned on to AF just ahead of me as I passed by Station Five and we continued north…Pumper 854 was ahead of us a good three or four minutes and I could see heavy black smoke off to the northeast of us a ways. As we approached where AF turns into Ridge Road, the smoke appeared to be east of us and we both missed the road sign for the turn off onto Longridge Lane…we only went a little ways before turning around…I told Chief Eric I thought the turn was back up on top of the hill and off to the east, so we went back up there and met Mickey Montee heading that way, advising his it was his son Matt`s place at the end of the road. Recent rains made the ground extremely wet and soggy, so there were no pull off places as we followed him to the scene and had to park in the driveway with the fire trucks…normally I like to stay out of their way but there were no other alternatives for parking this time…we arrived to find the crew of Captain Dave Konys trying to search and knock down hot spots of a single story outbuilding located behind the residence….
..I moved over to the west side where firefighters Stetson Zelch and Ryan Sumpter were trying to extinguish the fire in the Bobcat…fuel and rubber burning in and around the machine were making it nearly impossible for them to put the fire out…
It was very windy that day and wind has spread the fire down into the woods behind the building as well, so some of the crews arriving behind us were donning leaf blowers, then walking down the hill to put a line around that fire…the building was basically on the ground when Dave`s crew arrived….
…leaving firefighters with containment and extinguishing the fires inside the perimeter, made easier with the removal of the tin roof sheets…St Clair Fire Department responded with a pumper tanker and arrived just ahead of Tanker 853….
…their firefighters assisting Sullivan firefighters in extinguishing the fire remaining….
……Sullivan`s firefighters made a second attempt at putting out the Bobcat fire….
In the next video, I made a mistake, thought I was filming Zac Martell on the hoseline when it was actually Stetson Zelch on the hoseline assisted by Ryan Sumpter…so again, sorry about that Stetson….
Firefighters remained on scene for about 90 minutes before releasing St Clair and Tanker 853 from the scene…