I had just returned home from lunch with my parents on Friday afternoon, August 28th, when I heard Cencom kick out a third alarm structure fire at Cuba, requesting Sullivan Fire pumper 814 to respond…apparently the first and second alarms occurred while we were eating, so I grabbed my camera, and Onyx and I headed to the truck. As we were driving up there, I texted Jim Bartle to let him know…and he called me soon after, said  the old Domino`s Pizza store in that shopping center, now called Timmy`s Pizza Parlor…. I told him I would keep him updated. As I approached the Hwy UU Overpass a few miles east of Cuba, I saw a column of heavy black and brown smoke in the sky, and as I approached the Cuba Hwy 19 exit, I could see the smoke was laying down from the fire location to 44 and then curling up into the blue skies.

Law enforcement had Highway 19 shut down just south of the interstate, so I drove over to the Mercy Pharmacy and parked in their extra parking area, left the motor running and the ac on for Onyx, and walked up to the back of the Shopping Center. The building is L shaped, the bottom of the L at the back where I was approaching, and this part of the building was emitting light brown smoke only. I walked on up around the Cuba City employees who had the electric and gas shut off to the building, and walked up through the Casey`s lot, where I looked over the fence and saw flames at the roofline and the entire roof above the pizza parlor was heavily sagged inward, a good indication that the fire originated there. I walked on around to Hwy 19 and stopped to talk to the two Cuba police officers, identified myself as shooting for the Sullivan Independent News and asked if I could walk down 19 to photograph the fire…they gave me permission and I walked down to shoot these next images of the front of the shopping center now chock full of fire trucks, ambulances, and firefighters….

…here you see Sullivan`s Ladder Truck 852 spraying water on to the roof…Shaun Hinson was on the tip of the ladder operating the nozzle while Captain Damon Sumpter was halfway down the ladder, unseen here by the trees. These were actually not the first photos I took at the fire, those did not come out due to problems with my camera that I didn`t notice til about 30 minutes later…so when I first arrived, Sullivan was not flowing water on to the roof of the building…

Within a few minutes, Cuba`s Ladder Truck also began flowing water on the south end of the fire as firefighters attempted to gain control of the rapidly spreading fire at the roofline….you can also see firefighters on the parking lot in front of 852 using handlines up under the eaves of the facade in an attempt to get water on the flames as well…..

It appeared to me that Cuba was utilizing their ladder as a means of escape for firefighters that were up on the roof when I arrived, and now began to flow water from their ladder pipe as well…

….heavy brown smoke was beginning to show up at the eaves of the roofline down behind the building toward the Cason Realty on the very south end of the structure, so firefighters on the ground began trying to find a way into the back of the building to find and fight the advancing fire….here you see Battalion Chief Keith Young from Steelville Fire District, assisting with operations at the back of the building…

I was shooting from across the street at the back of the building, talking to Cuba Free Press Photographer Chris Kase while taking these photos…I remarked that pretty soon that intense heat buildup was going to find a place to vent….as you see Chief Young continuing to check the entrance to Cason Realty…he got plenty of exercise that day between keeping an eye on the fire and the firefighters there…

..firefighters decided to try and find another way into the Realty Store, this time through the metal wall on the rear of the building…

…and soon enough, the fire vented through the wood facade above the entrance doors to the Cason Realty at the very east end of the building…

Chief Young came back around to take a look and immediately called for a truck on the east end of the building….as flames began to intensify from the facade….

 

After a tense twenty minutes, Owensville Fire Department`s Snorkel Truck arrived at the east end of the shopping center in front of the Cason Realty….

and firefighters began searching for the nearest hydrant…it was located about a block to the east, so the engineer backed his truck down that street and dropped his supply line there….while they were hooking to the hydrant, the fire in the facade above the entrance doors intensified…catching the electric service lines to the building on fire, prompting the Cuba Electric Department employees to further shut down the lines along the street from pole to pole….

and then just prior to the Snorkel truck returning, the heavily engulfed facade came crashing down….

Firefighters pulled a handline off the Snorkel truck and proceeded around to the back of the store, stopping briefly to knock down the flames from the engulfed facade to cool things down a bit…..

….giving the Engineer time to engage the pump and ladder pipe to hit the main part of the fire….the water that came out of the stream was clay mud colored….

…indicative of a hydrant that has not been opened in a very long time…usually after flowing for a bit the water will clear, but the entire time I was there, at least 20 to 30 minutes, the water never did clear up….

 Firefighters were able to penetrate the back metal skin of the building and mount an attack there while the Snorkel crew was knocking down the fire at the front of the store….

….as the fire built back up and intensified after the Snorkel crew finished up….

 

…so the handline crew at the back slot moved around front to finish knocking down the fire and bringing the advance to a stop…no easy feat, they definitely had their hands full for about fifteen minutes doing so….

 

 

 

 

 

 

…when I left about 20 minutes later, this is how it looked, the intensity of the fire gone and just a light white smoke rising from the building, indicating to me that the fire was under control….firefighters there did a great job in fighting the advancing fire and bringing it to a stop before it reached the last few stores and radio station in the building…..