The morning of March 24th, Sullivan Fire was dispatched to a first alarm residential structure fire on Highway FF in the 3400 block, just south of the quarry. When I turned on FF, I caught up to Chief Eric and followed him to the scene, and then drove past the scene to a driveway 100 feet further south, parked out of the way of that drive, and hoofed it back to the fire. As I was approaching the residence driveway, MoBap Ambulance backed out of the driveway and allowed Pumper 854, on approach with Ray Enloe driving, the right of way. Ray had to swing wide to make it up the narrow gravel drive, which was tightly enclosed on both sides with overgrown cedar trees, that were in huge need of some major pruning work. The tanker was next and then the ambulance drove back up…there was very little parking space at the end of the drive, all other units responding on the first alarm had to park down on the highway. The residence turned out  to be a rock and wood frame, two story home, with heavy fire blowing out the entire back of the house…

House Fire 3419 Hwy FF 2022-0324 AVI 211

Firefighter Tyler Goodman was on the nozzle with Captain Damon Sumpter backing him up, and Ray was on Damon`s shift, filling in for Jacob Dace. I told Ray later, that I recognized this house, that we had been there many years ago on a working flue fire…Ray remembered that call as well, as the chimney was damaged that night and it was apparent it had been rebuilt…somewhat…lasting many more years.

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Tyler made a good knockdown on the back of the house, and then moved up on the south side of the residence, trying to knock down heavy fire through the windows…

…and despite the initial knockdown, the fire upstairs continued to build…and then fire returned to the back porch so Tyler returned to that area yet again…

…and then he tried to hit the second story fire as well….

…and then he was hitting the first floor windows once again….

The fire upstairs began to build, the smoke turning dark brown from white, fairly quickly, and then Bourbon Firefighters arrived to assist… their crew entered the front door with a hoseline and proceeded upstairs to try and locate the fire there….

…led by Bourbon Assistant Chief Brent Byrd…while I didn`t hear the radio traffic while they were up there, I did follow the smoke signals…the heat and fire up there kept building and building, as did the smoke cloud….

Bourbon`s crew came out briefly and Damon put the stream thru the second floor windows as the fire continued to build and the smoke went black as well….

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…as you can see, a  ladder was placed up to the roof, as a safety for the crews upstairs battling fire, in case they needed to make an escape through the windows…pretty soon, one could tell they were making headway on the fire upstairs because the smoke started turning from dark brown to white once again…

…while Tyler kept pouring the water on the back porch area…eventually, Firefighter Zach Martel was sent up the ladder to the roof….to pull those heavy curtains out of the windows to ventilate the smoke up there…

…and they eventually fed him a hoseline as well….

I left the scene soon after…understand the Fire Marshal responded to the scene and determined later, that the fire was accidental and began on the back porch area.