By Michael Howell
On the evening of Tuesday, August 9, a large barn located across the driveway from three homes on Easy Street off of Middle Burnt Fork Road east of Stevensville burned down during a lightning storm.
Bob Williams, one of the residents in a home just a few hundred feet from the barn, was jolted awake by thunder so loud that he jumped up and ran outside barefoot to see what had happened. He said he saw a small fire burning on the roof of the barn at the north end and as he watched smoke began rising from one of the cupolas on the roof and then the next one. Soon fire burst out of the barn doors and not long afterward the large metal roof collapsed and the whole barn fell into a heap of rubble. He said all that happened within 30 or 40 minutes. But the fire raged on.
“Response by fire departments from all over the north valley was quick,” said Stevensville Fire Chief Jeff Motley. “But the structure could not be saved.” Motley said a mutual aid agreement is in effect among all valley fire departments and any call going out will automatically go to all the fire departments. In this case the fire was in the jurisdiction of the Stevensville Rural and Rex Olson was the commanding officer, but engines and tenders showed up from Florence, Three Mile, Victor and the Town of Stevensville.
According to Motley, this is the first fire on which the town has used its new ladder truck. He said it was just the thing for this event.
“Anytime you can get an elevated stream of water on a big fire like this it’s a huge advantage,” said Motley. He said the ladder hose also puts out a much greater flow than the ground lines can. By using a thermal imaging camera they were able to direct the stream from the ladder truck to hot spots on the ground.
Bob Lewis brought in his excavator and, working with the fire crew, helped disperse the burning remnants so they could be dowsed and then was able to re-pile the mess in a compact mass in the end without tearing up the ground.
Local residents had nothing but praise for the firefighters and Lewis.
“It was amazing,” said Williams, “that all these people coming from so many different towns can come together and work so smoothly and in concert together. Nobody was in anybody else’s way as they all went about their jobs. Nobody was bumping into anybody else. It was smooth, efficient and professional in every way. It shows a lot of training.”
Lightning is the suspected cause of the fire. The barn, which was being used for storage, and most of the contents were completely destroyed in the fire but an associated animal barn and the nearby homes were all spared.