Saturday afternoon, I was returning home from rockhunting and about to make the turn on to my street to go home and unload the goodies from the truck, when we were paged out for a field fire at the Sullivan Airport. I looked in that direction and saw a huge cloud of heavy white and brown smoke, so decided to go over and snap a few photos if they didnt need any help, and then go home and unload the rocks.

As I was heading that way, I flipped my pager over to open channel to monitor radio traffic and heard several units responding to the call. I knew they had training that morning so figured there would be a good response and there was, many were at Station Five still, so only half a mile from the airport. As I turned on to Hwy AF, I heard one of the officers state that they could handle the fire with two units already on scene and everyone else could disregard. I looked at the huge cloud again, and thought to myself, this I have to see…so as I pulled into the airport road entrance off AF, this is what I saw….

…I drove on down around the buildings to the hangar entrance area and saw that most of the trucks had entered from the hangar near ARCH, so I drove on down and parked next to Pumper 814. I made sure my ac was on high for Missy and grabbed my camera and walked around to the passenger side of 814 and started shooting photos of the head of the fire, which was burning toward the north, toward the runway…..

…I could see that the grass had been recently cut and was brown and dry, so it was burning pretty hot and heavy out there…I saw one of our red brush units in the burn area near the head of the fire, but they didnt seem to be attacking the head of the fire at all….

…another of our units was down along the rear line of the fire, and the jeep, unit 898, was nearest to me, on the west side of the fire. I thought that was highly unusual since we are trained to get to the head of the fire as soon as possible and attack it first, and none of the three units were doing that….

…the fire started growing in intensity, it was moving up a slight hill toward the runway and so it was burning hotter as it climbed the hill….

….the flames were getting higher too…

….pretty soon ahead though, it would hit a swale and slow back down….

..Casey was driving 814 and came over to me and we talked about the fact that no one was taking care of the head of the fire, so he radioed Command and advised him that the head of the fire needed to be attacked with a brush unit soon because the flames were approaching the runway…I had moved off to shoot a few extra photos and then Casey asked me to join him in the pumper, he had been ordered to drive the pumper out and attack the head of the fire. I was amazed as we dont normally do this with pumpers…we use our pumpers mainly as a base for water, for the brush trucks to return to and refill their tanks with water, then return and fight fire…Casey wanted me to operate the pump while he hosed down the fire.

He cut across the field in front of us since it was dry and the ground would support a heavy truck, we had four tons of water on board alone. We were asked later why we didnt drive down the runway, and my answer was that we didnt know if the runway had been shut down to air traffic…it had been requested to be shut down by radio, but we had no confirmation that it had been done…so he drove out and parked the pumper about seventy to a hundred feet from the fireline…I climbed out of the passenger side and as I did, I noticed a shrill whistle from the pump indicating some type of alarm….I climbed up into the driver seat and confirmed Casey had set the air brakes and I then set about to place the truck into pump, activating an electronic two lever switch and I usually hear a sound that indicates the truck has switched over to pump once you activate the switch, but I didnt hear that sound…the green light came on at the switch indicating the truck is now in pump, but that doesnt always confirm anything…after placing the transmissing into drive, I got out and climbed up on the crossover and pulled the levers to pump water from the tank to the front preconnect hoseline, which Casey had pulled and was waiting for water at the nozzle…the fire was about fifty feet away at this point…and I started throttling up the pump.

The third indication to me that something was wrong, was when I looked around the cab and saw Casey still waiting for water with a limp hoseline in his hands…by now water and air pressure should have charged that hoseline and he should have been opening the nozzle to bleed off the air pressure, but he was still waiting for water. I now had confirmation that the pump wasnt working and probably hadnt been working since he arrived at least, possibly before that, and that was confirmed later for me as well. Casey dropped the hoseline and yelled to everyone to clear the truck, and he made one last ditch effort to jump in the cab, disengage the pump and move the truck out of harms way…but the fire raced up with a gust of strong wind, and the super heated air  and smoke overtook him and the truck way too fast, and we abandoned ship and ran for the runway…..

 

…luckily no one was hurt, there were only four of us up there at the time, one junior firefighter who remained relatively calm for his first big fire and three of us senior firefighters, and thats always the main thing, safety of our personnel. The fire quickly raced under and around the truck, the flames under the truck were not very high, not over a foot high and didnt get any higher than that until the fire reached the north side of the truck and hit open space once again….

…within a few seconds the fire raced past the truck and the smoke lifted, and I tapped Casey on the shoulder and pointed out that the truck was still there in one piece, and we walked over to check it out….

..Jimmy and his crew in 858 came up and hosed down the truck tires and undercarriage with a fog stream from the brush truck, and hot spots around the truck, as we were checking it out….and made sure everyone was okay. We started taking inventory of the damage…old Glory hanging off the back of the hosebed was melted down and singed…

the front preconnect hoseline was burning out in front of the pumper, a fire helmet was melted down, and some belts and wires were hanging down under the truck`s undercarriage….

We rolled up the windows on the truck as there were still alot of super heated embers flying around and we didnt need a fire inside the cab, and then we walked away to let things settle down and try to cool down ourselves…

Jimmy and his crew headed east toward Acid Mines Road to join up with other brush units, as the wind changed direction and was now gusting solid and pushing the fire to the east…..

…..flames could be seen jumping out ahead of the fire line as embers were blown way out in front of the fire as it moved east toward the Catholic Cemetery and heavy wooded areas, as the fire moving across the field literally exploded in intensity and strength….

 …with some flames seen as high as fifteen to twenty feet high….

Nolan came along with the jeep and tied up loose ends near the runway…..

…with junior firefighters raking behind them, before driving on down the runway to fill their water tank and then rejoin the brush units down at the east end of the airport property.  As Casey and I waited for things to cool down, additional brush units began arriving after Command called for a brush first alarm. After the smoke and embers cleared, Casey and I returned to the pumper and rolled the windows back down to clear out the smoke and dust from the cab. Casey tried to see if the truck was driveable, however could only get it to back up and the brakes didnt seem to be working well, so he chocked the wheel and we waited for Chuck to arrive with this big wrecker.  I continued to photograph the progress of the fire on the east side of the airport while we were waiting….

…and looking to the southeast, where the fire was consuming tall grass not cut yet, flames were twenty to thirty feet high and approaching woods as well….

 

 

…we found out while cooling down that the fire started as a result of hay cutting…the airport fields are contracted out to individuals for the hay and the guy cutting the grass to bale hay, hit a rock and sparked the blaze.

Crews were able to bring the fire on the east side under control with water eventually and began moving back across the tall grass on the southeast side….

 

….on approach to the south flank where flames were high as the fire moved through the tall grass….

 

…the jeep crew soon refilled, once again drove across and joined the effort to bring the south flank under control….

…which by this time, the wind had shifted once again and was pushing the fire toward the wooded areas once again….

…so that between the wind and the fuel load, the high dry grass, the fire load was unbelievably high on the south line in no time at all, and crews had their hands full once again….by this time, Bourbon and St Clair Fire Departments were on scene as well and joined in the fight….

 

 

…and pretty soon, Chuck`s Towing arrived and safely transported Pumper 814 back home…..

All in all, about twenty acres burned up, no injuries occurred, no lives were lost, and airport delays were minimized, and damage to fire equipment is yet to be determined, as there were a few other trucks there that day that had problems afterwards. However, that is why departments and districts carry insurance on personnel and equipment.