Hours later they learned he had dived through his broken windshield as the fire broke out. “That meant if he was still with the rig at all, he had to be pinned underneath, and there was nothing we could do for him then. “We finally got close enough to the cab to see that he wasn’t in there”, one said. But the fire did indirectly cause one death, that of an elderly woman tavernkeeper across 1 st Street, who fled in terror only to collapse from a heart attack… Advancing under cover of two hose streams, officers sought to rescue the truck driver. Fortunately, only 2 of the 125 plant employees were still inside when the crash occurred, both escaped unharmed. Other units laddered the west end of the plant and connected to standpipes there. Chief 3, Ambulance 1, and the Compressor… The first necessity was for Engines 3 and 1 to cut off the extension of fire northward along 1 st Street, where flaming gasoline was flowing into a nearby railroad underpass. Battalion Chief 1 ordered a third alarm a few minutes later sending Engines 31, 26, and 28, Ladder 6, Batt. Chief 4, and Mobile Hospital were dispatched.

Engines 20, 2, and 11, Ladders 4 and 2, Rescue Squad 2, Batt. Flames topped the roof of the doomed plant as eight firefighters disengaged the clutches to raise the heavy doors by hand… A Captain of Ladder 8 put in a second alarm at once. With the fallen utility pole having cut all neighborhood power, the electrically operated doors wouldn’t open. The most urgent problem for the first due companies was getting out of their firehouse. The 75-year-old brick plant was fully sprinklered, but these could hardly cope with 12 tons of flaming gasoline, producing unusual miniature “tornadoes” from fire visible to onlookers… At 6:36 p.m., men at Station 3 had radioed in the fire alarm (Engines 3, 1, and 12, Fireboat 1, High Pressure 1, Ladders 8 and 1, Batt. The tanker had ruptured… Instantly, either from friction sparks or hot wires downed with a corner utility pole, the gasoline ignited flashing a wall of fire up the side of the building and through windows on four floors. when “a 6,500-gallon gasoline tanker overturned rounding the corner of 1 st and Florida Streets, rolling to rest against the office windows of the 6 story Jewett & Sherman Food Processing Plant. On a Milwaukee, Wisconsin fifth alarm fire started around 6:35 p.m.

Mercy thompson book 5