Mobile Home Fire

Mobile Fire

In the fire service, one thing you can generally count on is there being a location for whatever type of event you are responding to. A structure fire, vehicle fire, car crash, etc. You will get dispatched to a location of the event. Sometimes, you will get “in the area of”, but it usually results in the passerby just not knowing what the address is. Or “across the street from” is another common update as we are given the location. Twice now, I’ve responded to a call out for a vehicle fire while that vehicle was still moving. A passerby sees the fire, calls it in, and we are dispatched to “last seen coming into Moscow from the north”. It was a cold winter morning and as I was getting ready to walk out the door to work, we were dispatched for just that type of call. Well, I lived on the north end of town so I hurried up to the highway to see what I could see. Nothing. I took off into town and as I approached the area of D and Main, traffic was almost at a standstill. I figured the reported vehicle must have stopped at this point. Of course, it happens at one of the busiest traffic times of the day. I cut through the Rosauers parking lot and around by the recycle center. I thought if I could cut around all the stopped cars, maybe I could find it from another angle. Sure enough, there it was. A chip truck stopped in the right-hand lane. I grabbed my radio and called it in. “We have a chip truck, now stopped, heavy fire showing from the engine compartment. Battalion 1 will have Main Street Command.” The driver had noticed the fire as he went through the light at D and Main. He was trying to get to the St. John Hardware lot to get out of the roadway but came short as the truck died before he got there. He safely exited the truck, and we now would go to work to stop the fire. One big difference with truck fires, is what’s in the trailer they are pulling. Wood chips are obviously a big fuel source when it comes to fire, so my first thought was trying to separate the truck from the trailer. One of our other Battalion Chiefs was on scene and he knew trucks. As I had our initial attack crew work on extinguishment, I had him working on trying to disconnect the trailer. I wasn’t sure how we would be able to pull them apart not having a power unit, but I thought it was a least ready to go, we could possibly use another vehicle to yank on it in order to keep the fire out of the trailer. The fire was spreading into the cab. I didn’t feel like it would get to the trailer at this point, but I was wanting to be proactive and be prepared for it. What could be a fairly short event, could turn into an entire day event if that trailer got involved. Fortunately, the engine crew did some quick work and got the fire knocked out. Any type of vehicle fire can take a little extra work as you get so much heat in those confined spaces mixed with fuel, hoses, wires, and plastics. In this case, it wasn’t too bad, and we were able to clear the scene for the wrecker to come get the truck out of the way and fully open up the roadway.

byKeith Crossler

Palouse Sleep Medicine

for children and adults

At Your Service

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The other call I experienced was another mobile event. That night, I was the on-duty Command Officer. We were dispatched to a pickup driving down the road with fire coming out from underneath the body. I had never heard of that before. I wasn’t too far away from the location, so I tried to hustle over in hopes of finding it before it left that area. No luck. I sped off in the direction given trying to find it. Part of me thought it was a prank call. Someone thought it would be funny to see us driving around looking for something that didn’t exist. After a few minutes of searching, hope was lost, so we downgraded our response. I had the crew continue to search the immediate area just to cover our bases. My worry was that the vehicle would park in a garage, not knowing about the fire, then we would have a much bigger and different event. I decided to head out of town a little way to make one last effort to locate the vehicle. I rounded the corner on Mix Road, just past the radio station and saw a pickup in a driveway with someone coming out from under it. Curious, I pulled in and asked him what he was doing. He was instantly defensive and asking me to leave him alone. I explained to him what we were looking for and he again asked me to leave. At this point, I felt like this was probably our vehicle and whoever this person was, is trying to hide something. I returned to my vehicle and asked for the engine to respond to my location and for police assistance. I usually don’t worry too much about people bothering us, but this just felt weird, and I didn’t want to take any chances. Once the officer arrived, our driver became a little more willing to give out some information and be compliant. We could see flames dripping from under his truck, so I had the engine crew take off a small line and just give it a good dousing to make sure it was out. As the crew was spraying, debris was falling out from underneath. It was straw. The driver admitted he was out driving through harvested wheat fields “having fun”. He didn’t realize that the straw was compacting up around his exhaust and once he got on the open road to home, the increased wind caused the smoldering fire to fully ignite. We got that fire all the way out quickly and there was really no damage to the vehicle. I still don’t know if he was cited or not, but I doubt he will ever do that again. A word of advice, if you see these types of events, make sure you can identify a location or direction of travel. Get a good description of the vehicle (color, make, or model) so we can look for something specific. Be specific about what is happening. If you are able, keep eyes on the vehicle and stay on the phone to give continued updates on the incident and location. These can help minimize the event and help us locate them quicker.

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