Sullivan Fire was dispatched to a van fire on westbound I-44 at the 227 mile marker, Friday morning about 9:30 am….so I drove out to photograph it, taking the South Service Road and parking at Juergens Trailer Park, then walking over to the guard rail where several others were gathered to watch it as well. It was burning so intensely, that it was hard to make it out as I snapped this first photo of it….

…as I was shooting the first video of it, the flames separated enough to tell it was a van and I was talking to a young lady there, asking her if she had seen any fire trucks, she was telling me that they had gone by on the eastbound side a couple of minutes before…it dawned on me that they went to Stanton to turn around, and return to get closer to the fire to fight it….

Van on Fire WB 44 Shoulder 227 MM 02112022

Captain Damon Sumpter and Firefighter Tyler Goodman stretched out the hoseline from the front bumper compartment of Pumper 854, while Firefighter Jacob Dace operated the pump panel on the truck….

..and since Tyler was new to the crew, a recent hire by Sullivan Fire District, Damon handed him the nozzle to attack the fire…

Van on Fire WB 44 Shoulder 227 MM 02112022 AVI 26-001

In the video above, the young lady is asking me why people driving by don`t slow down…my answer was and is, because they are idiots…meaning they have no common sense in this situation…they should be thinking about the welfare of the firefighters…Jacob was standing at the pump panel of the truck, much closer to them than Damon and Tyler, but eventually Tyler and Damon are going to have to move closer to that van as they put the fire out, and that will position them closer to traffic…so obviously those drivers had no regard for their safety at all, driving fast through there like that…and then they wonder, why traffic gets stopped as a whole…it is all about the safety of first responders on the scene.

Within a few short minutes, they had it knocked down and had to mop up to fully extinguish it….

…they noticed the tires are still on fire on their side…so they….

…sweep out to the side with the hoseline and knock out those fires….

…and continue to the front of the van to knock down more small fires on the opposite corner….

…which kicks up a big cloud of smoke, so you know they were right on the money there….white smoke indicating that water is getting on the fire and putting it out…

…eventually, those fires around the rear tires persisted in burning, as they normally do…so Damon took the nozzle and continued working on those fires to finally extinguish them….

GREAT WORK GUYS !!