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paulz
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# Posted: 26 Apr 2022 09:46am
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Well yesterday got pretty exciting. I was working on some stairs when we got dispatched to a cabin fire about a mile down the road from me. Got to the fire house, everyone else out of town, so I took a rig and went alone. The County pros were en route so I figured I'd do traffic control or something simple as usual.
Headed up to the end of a winding paved driveway to where County's big fire trucks were parked. They came up and said my rig (Ford F550 with 300 gallons) was the only one that could reach the scene. Oh Shit! Put it in 4WL and continued up a tight dirt road, skimming past an overgrowth of trees, to where the crews were waiting, still 500 ft. from the blaze. Threw out the hose packs, fired up the pump and played engineer while they fought the fire. Pretty stressful for this old volunteer to be that much in the thick of things.
Fortunately it was a not a life threatening situation but the cabin was toast, having only been called in after smoke was noticed in the hills. A power line was found to be leading to a neighbor's residence, where the breaker had been tripped. I had never seen the place before but this is it now. No real improvements to the surrounding property, just a structure in a clearing.
Something for us to learn, make you place as accessible for large Type 1 and 3 fire trucks.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 26 Apr 2022 10:05am
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Sounds like whatever shorted out got to overheat and ignition before the fuse blew?
Bad news if that had been occupied in the middle of a night.
Is there going to be an investigation and/or fine?
Here in WI we have regs on driveway width, etc, for just such. What many dont keep up with is the canopy growing in from the sides above 'normal vehicle height'.
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Nobadays
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# Posted: 26 Apr 2022 10:13am
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Ouch! Good that you were able to supply some water to allow them to at least control it, keep it from going anywhere.
Our cabin probably wouldn't be accessible to big fire trucks, mainly because we have a one way driveway... but they could park at the entrance and only have 80-100' of hose to lay. But, being 34 miles from the nearest fire department... we would be a black spot!
Our HOA is in the process, may be built, of putting together a first response trailer with a 300-400 gallon tank, fire pump and hose. It will be parked ready to go so anyone can hook on and get to the fire. Fortunately there are several of us who are/were firefighters (I was volunteer for 10+) so hopefully we would have a chance of holding the fort until the big boys arrive!
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paulz
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# Posted: 26 Apr 2022 11:06am
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I'm going over to County this morning to get all our hose back, we'll see if they say anything more about the source of the fire. We have those road regulations too, and it's usually tree clearance problems or big ruts. IIRC our regulations say a maximum of 300' from rig parking area to rearmost wall of the structure, and my cabin is right at that limit.
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