I was just about to shut off my computer and head to bed the other night when I heard the tones drop for Sullivan and they were dispatched to a barn fire, well involved, on Highway A…I looked up the address online and the maps put the address at Indian Creek where there were some big farms in the area, so I grabbed my camera and flash, and Onyx and I headed for the truck. I drove thru town and headed down Hwy 185 into the state park…the highway thru the park there was under construction and I had not been down thru there yet, so I got to see all the roadcuts made thru the hillside as Modot widened the path of the highway…something that should have been done many years ago. I figured that I would be able to see a glow soon and that would give me a better idea of where the fire was located on Hwy A. Soon after rounding the curve just past Hwy K, the entire sky lit up with a HUGE orange glow, indicating that this fire was much closer to Hwy 185 than the map indicated it to be…and I was looking for a parking spot out of the roadway as soon as I turned on to Hwy A. I turned the air on low for Onyx and hoofed it down the highway to the fire, with my camera in hand, arriving at the scene to see a medium sized barn fully involved…..shooting without flash on the first one….
…..and then spotting a mobile home extremely close to the fire as well….heavy smoke was seen coming from the end of the trailer on the barn end and a blue hoseline going into the trailer…interior fire crews wisely entered the trailer to locate and attack the fire inside there first….
…and then I spotted EMT Ronnie Martin up on the hillside in front of Pumper 854 attacking the barn fire with another hoseline….
…I walked up and took a few from the hill above and behind him…he told me there were upright gas tanks by the wall of the barn in front of him and he was trying to keep them cooled down….while Captain Cody Martin and Firefighter Gary Midyett were inside the trailer….
…soon after I arrived, a second Sullivan pumper arrived and set up at the bottom of the hill in the driveway next to the highway, where a drop tank was set up for tanker operations to supply water to 854…..
…soon the interior crew came outside and began to attack the barn fire after cooling down the trailer from the outside and extinguishing a small fire under the trailer…
