Helping hands come to the rescue

Good Samaritans (and dog) help extinguish house fire in Neskowin

By CHELSEA YARNELL for the Sun

Chase Golombek (Lincoln City) and Doug Stephenson (Otis) of Golombek Construction were working on a home in Neskowin on Jan. 12 when suddenly Stephenson’s dog Tug drew their attention.

“Tug started barking like crazy,” Stephenson said.

Unbeknownst to Chase and Doug, the five-year old Australian Shepherd was alerting them to a house fire next door.

“I saw some smoke and ran back in and yelled for Chase,” Stephenson said. “We ran over there to put the fire out.”

CONTRACTORS Chase Golombek (Lincoln City) and Doug Stephenson (Otis) of Golombek Construction, and Stephenson’s Australian Shepherd Tug, helped contain a house fire in Neskowin on Jan. 12 while awaiting for first responders.

Golombek and Stephenson recounted that the home had the water turned off, so they grabbed a hose at a neighboring house and started to wet the flames.

“We didn’t really think,” Golombek said. “We just saw that there was a fire and just helped out. There wasn’t any questioning or debating.”

Stephenson said that he was concerned that fire would spread throughout the neighborhood.

“The thing that concerned me was that there was a big pine fir and branches covering the porch (where the fire was),” Stephenson said. “We had to jump on it right away.”

Nestucca Rural Fire Protection District received the call to respond to a fire at 1:35 p.m. By 1:56 p.m., an engine was on the scene.

“The first two engines were really close to each other,” Chief Jim Oeder said. “Hebo was first in, and I also had a North Lincoln County (engine) coming in right behind them. We ended up with six persons very fast on scene. We had two engines that were full of our volunteers as it being the middle of the day during the work week. That still gave us a good response with our volunteers.”

Oeder told the Sun that the cause is still under investigation, but the fire was contained to the kitchen and back deck on the second level of the home.

Once on the scene, “the attack line went up the ladder to the deck and was able to make entry and knock down the fire,” Oeder said. “If it wasn’t for the two contractors that were next door, it would have been different for us. They saw smoke coming from the house, and they reacted. They were able to put enough water on it to slow it down until our crew could get there.”

Golombek and Stephenson both credit additional members of the community for their help including calling first responders.

“We weren’t the only people doing something,” Golombek said.

“It was a community effort,” agreed Stephenson. Golombek and Stephenson also give high praise to Tug for being the first to notice something was amiss.

“Five minutes before Tug started barking, I went outside to get some fresh air and drink some water; it smelled like someone was burning tires,” Stephenson said. Later on, Stephenson found out that the smell was of the homeowners’ plastic lawn chairs burning.

“I guess that’s what he was smelling,” Stephenson said.

Oeder reports that the home has smoke and water damage on all three floors, and the ceiling and kitchen have fire damage. No other structures in the surrounding area were affected.

North Lincoln Professional Firefighters Local 5169, Tillamook Fire, and Adventist Health Tillamook Ambulance also responded to the incident.