Wow what a weekend…we were busy with accident calls on I-44 at the east end of town due to construction project backup, then were toned out for a vehicle on fire and seconds later, a house fire…as units were pulling up from Hwy WW on the west side of the district, it appeared to them that a barn was on fire, so the first in crew updated dispatch and advised this was a barn on fire…I was out on a shoot and driving in from the west, and was scanning the sky for heavy smoke but saw none, even though the first in crew reported heavy fire conditions and struck a second alarm.
I pulled up on the scene and figured out why, the smoke was staying low and going down the valley, not rising so much. This was an all metal structure with a barn/auto body shop on the northwest end and a house on the south east end of the structure, and heavy fire on both ends, so heavy on the body shop end that crews were unable to enter, and were aiming streams inside through a window and a doorway when I arrived.
As extra crews were arriving from Bourbon Fire District, the fire on the home end vented through a large vent near the peak of the roof, and so an extra line was stretched from Pumper 854 to the other end of the building….
I ran over and helped them stretch the line and as I rounded the far corner, this is what I saw….
and
….so Bourbon`s firefighters suited up and entered the home end of the building to locate the seat of the fire and extinguish it with the extra line, the red colored hoseline…
and as Bourbon`s firefighters entered the house, this is what I saw on the north side of the building…
…smoke rolling out of the north side and inset garage doors, where it was pointed out to us that there were a couple of antique restored cars inside, and if we could open those doors, we could rescue the cars…so we got our saw out and made a new door, since the doors were locked and bolted from the inside and the keys were naturally inside on a peg…
where there`s a way, there`s a will, or something like that…they cut a hole big enough for a firefighter to get in and he unbolted the doors and voila !
and so out the door came one car followed by a nice restored GTO…
Once they freed the two cars, which only had a little smoke damage each, they were able to concentrate efforts on extinguishing the heavy fire up in the upstairs area, which had heavy rolling, deepseated flames. The fire upstairs was so heavy that interior crews were pulled out shortly after…despite the airhorns on the trucks sounding the get out of there now signal, one of the guys, Billy Harris, had to physically walk to the last man on the hoseline and relay the message in person.
So once they were pulled out, they attacked the fire from outside where it was much safer, until it could be knocked down and made safer to enter again…
Once it appeared it was down…firefighters stopped to check and could see it was rolling still, but on the south side….
so they redoubled efforts and resources this time and aimed the streams to the south side…
..utilizing some of St Clair and Cuba`s firefighters to assist us in our efforts…trucks were stacking up out on Hwy WW so the roadway was shut down to normal traffic…
Five fire departments represented in equipment here alone…the fire went to four alarms and nine fire departments responded with sixteen pieces of equipment to help us fight the fire…a massive tanker shuttle was started as well and Hwy WW was utilized for this operation as well…
the alarm was initially received about 4 pm and our firefighters remained on scene til midnight, investigating with the assistance of the Missouri State Fire Marshals Office and extinguishing hot spots. Once the fire on the home end was knocked down, crews were able to enter from the auto body end and extinguish the home end fire…
here Junior Firefighters, Kyle Arnold, is shown watching the doorway and feeding hose to interior firefighters at the auto body end…
Eventually the owner was located and he arrived and conferred with crews on the auto body end about the extent of damage inside…
As I said, what a way to start the weekend….luckily no one was hurt.