By KALIN KROHE
Panhandle Post
Updated at 8:20 p.m.
The Alliance Volunteer Fire Department was called to a large structure fire at the Westco Tire Center at approximately 2 a.m. today, June 28.
The Alliance Police Department, Hemingford Volunteer Fire Department, City of Alliance Electrical, Water, Public Works Departments, and Black Hills Energy have been assisting AVFD throughout the day.
The 3rd Street Underpass opened back up to the public at around 8:20 p.m.
"We had heavy smoke prior to our arrival showing, we did find an exterior fire on the west side of the building that moved to the inside of the building," Alliance Fire Chief Troy Shoemaker said. "The construction of the building was such, that you don't send people into what's called the bowstring construction. If you can look at the roof from the top, it has a bow in it, and what connects those...that bow together is another stringer at the bottom of those. And when that stringer, so to speak, for lack of a better term, becomes compromised or fails, that allows the roof to collapse. It also pushes walls out and pushes walls in. And that's exactly what happened to us. We had a heavy fire load in the building and it had a pretty good start prior to arrival."
Shoemaker said the cause of the fire is still under investigation, and tells Panhandle Post he isn't sure when the fire will be completely extinguished.
"Well, with the roof collapse, that really complicates getting into areas where there is fire involvement," Shoemaker said. "We have some void spaces that we're working on right now. We have used some heavy equipment to knock some walls down to try to access those pockets so we can get water in there. At one point, we had four trucks pumping water, that's roughly 5,500 to 6,000 gallons per minute. We're attached to four fire hydrants around the blocks of the Westco Tire Center. We've had 22 firefighters on scene since about 2 a.m. this morning. And sometimes when you think that you're getting a good handle on it, something surprises you. But at this point, I think we're on the downhill slide, so to speak. I know that's probably a bad term to use. But we're doing as best as we can at this point."
At approximately 4:15 a.m. a Code Red Alert message about the fire was sent to Alliance residents stating, "Please stay clear of the area for your safety."
"3rd Street is a is a pretty busy street for us," Shoemaker said. "They [City of Alliance] did it for the safety of the firefighters and they did it for the safety of the public, alerting them to stay out of the area. What seemed to happen is; it was more of an invitation to come and see what really is going on. It felt like we got converged on for a short time til...with the help of the police department, public works and State Department of Roads, up until the point that we were able to get barricades placed around the area. We did have a lot of bystanders that were trying to come in and and watch us on the fire. My point is, when the city does that, it's really for the safety of the people that are fighting a fire or whatever the case may be. And it's also for the safety of the general public as well. I mean, we had two pretty significant explosions during this fire and, you know, we can't control explosions. You never know if you're going to have shrapnel go from one place to another place. And it would be bad if we hurt a firefighter, but even if we hurt somebody that was just watching us do what we do. I'm just guesstimating, you know, sometimes 98% of the people heed those types of warnings, it's the 2% that are really are curious and really want to know what's going on. And sometimes that 2% can really make the situation for us, trying to do an important job even worse. Another reason why that went out was because we have fire hoses on the ground. We really don't need fire hoses drove over because that could really make a bad situation worse. So if somebody's wondering why they can't just drive around and see it, that's part of the reason why."
Shoemaker said he appreciates what the community and public have done to help the AVFD during this situation. They've brought water, Gatorade, snacks, etc. for the firefighters.
"So we can rehab the firefighters during this, you know, we're going on eight to nine hours of doing this...so that takes a toll on the on the human body. But the good of humanity really comes out with these as well. So I don't want to under stress that. But sometimes when we ask for a little bit of help, there's a really good reason why we asked for that. And when we put out those alerts, it's really for the safety of everybody involved on scene and everybody involved are out on the outskirts of it. We just don't want anybody to get hurt."
Shoemaker said the firefighters have a good amount of supplies at this time, but if people would like to donate things they can set items outside the entrance doors of the Alliance Fire Department.
Shoemaker also said that the AVFD is always looking for volunteers to join their team to help keep the community safe.
"The fire department is always looking for willing people that help protect their community," Shoemaker added. "These big structure fires for us, fortunately, are few and far between, but when we do have them, they're labor intensive. I want to remind our community that our fire department is predominantly volunteers. So you have your own family members, your own neighbors, volunteering their time away from their places of employment, to help make their community better. We're always looking for that type of person to be a member of our department. So that's one of those things that never stops for us, we're always looking for people that are willing to give a helping hand. It makes our community better, it makes the fire department better. And you know, it doesn't get any better than that."
