Hey Jack

[MIKEYLIKESIT]

Thats 2 big fires in just few months. How come we havent heard about it?

[kprsn1]

Mikey, I've been trying to tell everyone about this for days but for some reason I can't start a new thread. Anyway, Jack was a bit tired the next day. He can tell you about it. Here's the news scoop in case anyone missed it.

Warehouse fire was like 'a big cooker inside'
By Adam Jadhav
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/09/2006

It took nearly 200 firefighters from 18 departments Thursday morning to extinguish a blaze that began the night before at a warehouse in Nashville, in Illinois' Washington County.

No one was injured, but flames consumed an 18,000-square-foot section of the warehouse - owned by Norrenberns Truck Service - and caused an estimated $1 million in damage, said Andy Kirchner, a vice president for the company. It is headquartered in Nashville, about 60 miles southeast of St. Louis, where it operates a 2-million-square-foot storage complex.

The cause of the fire is undetermined. Investigators believe it began about 10 p.m. Wednesday. The flames weren't contained until after 2 a.m., and the embers weren't put out until about 9 a.m. Thursday, said Steve Haertling, a member of Nashville's volunteer fire department.

The fire didn't appear particularly spectacular from the outside but burned hot inside the metal warehouse, fueled apparently by latex paint stored inside, Haertling said. Fire crews came from as far away as Centralia and Mount Vernon.

"It was just like a big cooker inside," Haertling said. "The flames were burning right through the metal."

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was checking for possible contamination by paint chemicals that washed away during the fire.

They called departments from as far away as New Baden. Centralia's ladder didn't get back into quarters until about 9:00 Thursday morning. We stayed put but several of us sat at the station for several hours since Huey and Hoffman were down there and Salem had a working residential fire at the same time. Only talked to Jack briefly via email but sounds like everyone did a nice job in preventing further fire extension to other warehouse areas.

Speaking of Centralia... Congratulations to Mike Kracht for being named the next Centralia FD Chief replacing retiring Chief Bill Thouvenin.

Chad

[MIKEYLIKESIT]

I was having the same trouble starting a thread. I read about the fire here and knew Jack was involved. I wonder if they used the MABAS system? Did Jack fight the fire with his son? Jack ? Jack? Inquiring minds want to know ! :p

[DjInferno]

Not sure where dad is, but I'll throw in my 2 cents! This fire was a mess! 18,000 square feet of nothing but paint! Add in the 1.5 million + gallons of water, and it was a BIG mess. I actually worked at the warehouse prior to joining Mt. Vernon Fire, so I was pretty familiar with it.

Nashville fire got the call for explosions inside the building, I think from a passing deputy. The building was not sprinkled. They made a GREAT stop on it to keep it from breaching the wall and getting into the other 40,000 square feet of paint and tires. From what I understand MABAS was used and worked perfectly. I was at work, listening to radio traffic really wanting to go! We finally got called and took an aerial down there. Water supply was the biggest problem. That whole fire was fought with no hydrants. The 2 aerials were being fed out of ponds and the rest was getting shuttled. Everyone there did a great job, had it gotten into the rest of the building we would have had major problems.

So between the exploding 5 gallon buckets of oil-based paint, and the aerosol can missles, the whole thing went almost shockingly well. We had to park our aerial in a corn field. Took a BIG tow truck to get us out. But at the time it was where the truck needed to be!

Here's the story w/ video on KSDK's website
http://ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=9821 7

[DjInferno]

Here's a pic from a different website. None of mine on my phone turned out very well. If anyone from Centralia reads this, get ahold of me, I know your guys took some pics and I need copies!

[jboczek]

I tried for about a half hour to start a thread on it while it was still going on. Couldn't get it done. What's up, Firehouse?
I actually stayed behind at our Ashley station, just in case our end of the county had something. DJ's description was pretty good - of course he had a birds eye view, literally, and a knowledge of the building as well. We sent a couple tankers, and then later a pumper but another dept. laid their supply line to a pond before we got there. My contribution was to take a pickup there and brought our pumper back to the station. Somebody had to do it.
Any idea what a can of spray paint can do to a truck when another truck runs one over? One of our tankers got a paint job. That one can of paint messed up the side and top from the front bumper to half way down the tank. Luckily we had some solvent that took it off and there's hardly a trace left. There was a heck of a job done by all involved. Now there's a heck of a mess to clean up.
Just for the record, I've been vacationing for the last 3 days so this is the first time I've even looked at a computer since Friday. What a way to live!