By Samantha Madison
The Observer-Dispatch
POLAND, N.Y. — After a fire destroyed a rescue truck and damaged the entire Poland Volunteer Fire Co. firehouse Sunday, Fire Chief Scott Burritt has a whole new perspective on how a fire affects someone’s life.
“We see fires on a regular basis, we go to people’s car fires, we go to people’s house fires, to brush fires and that type of stuff,” he said. “But it puts it in a new light, it really brings it back down to a personal level because now you can identify with what someone, not only initially has to deal with, but what the future holds for them and what’s in store for them to try to recover their own personal lives. ... It gives me more empathy for those people.”
During the restoration and cleaning process, which is sure to be lengthy, the fire company’s other station in the village is handling calls while firefighters from Barneveld, Deerfield and Newport are available for mutual aid.
While the investigation is ongoing into what officially caused the blaze, Burritt said the fire started in one of the trucks Sunday afternoon, and because the firehouse is not staffed full time, no one was there.
A water pipe above the truck burst and put the fire out, but by the time staff discovered the situation, the building was filled with smoke. None of the five trucks that were parked at station No. 1 on Sunday are in service, Burritt said.
The rescue truck likely is going to be a complete loss, the ladder truck can’t run until it passes an official safety inspection, and the other three trucks smell so deeply of smoke that they need to be cleaned before being put back into service.
Damage from the heat and smoke spread throughout the building and a structural engineer has to come in and determine if the building is even sound enough to continue to be a firehouse.
Once the engineer makes a determination, the next step is waiting for the insurance company to finish its investigation, Burritt said. The firehouse has extensive insurance coverage for instances such as this, but there’s no guarantee that everything will be covered.
During the past week, Burritt said volunteers from nearly every fire department in Herkimer County and a number from Oneida County have come or offered to come help clean. They’ve laundered the firefighters’ turnout gear for them and done anything that has been necessary to get the station back on its feet.
“I’m still overwhelmed by the amount of volunteer firefighters who came out to help us,” he said. “That still takes my breath away, takes my thoughts away from me. ... And the community has been very supportive and has been asking what they can do.”
Volunteers from the community have also helped, especially by making food for the firefighters who have been working long hours trying to clean their firehouse.
Karen Ryan delivered sandwiches, salads, cake and Jello to the station Wednesday afternoon. Her son Sean is a Poland firefighter, so Karen Ryan is aware firsthand of the time the volunteers have put in cleaning.
“They’re volunteers in the community,” Ryan said. “They don’t get paid. Many of them are down here on their own time, working hard. The least we can do is bring a meal to them and help with the effort of cleanup, as well.”
Over most of the last week, Claim Masters Disaster Restoration of New Hartford was at the site before the structural engineer came to evaluate the building.
Owner John Strachen said he believes the engineer will deem the building to be safe for use, but it’s hard to tell through the soot that settled throughout the entire building whether there’s a crack in the concrete or what other damage could exist.
As long as the building is safe, he hopes to get the firehouse clean pretty quickly.
“They’re going to want to rush this as much as possible because it’s a fire department,” Strachen said. “So we make it a high priority -- we drop what we’re doing and run. We’ll be here for a good, long two weeks, a lot of overtime.”
Burritt said it’s going to be an uphill battle over the next few months, or more, while everything is cleaned up and restored, but once this is over, he is going to make sure that everyone learns from this experience.
“I’m going to have to sit down, take stock of it all, take notes and find out what went wrong,” he said. “As soon as we get back into our station and as soon as we get our operations back, we are going to take a full evaluation. If it hurts us, it hurts us; if it hurts our pride, it hurts our pride. We’re going to take a lesson as to why this happened, how can we fix it and how can we make sure this doesn’t happen again, plain and simple.”
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(c)2016 Observer-Dispatch, Utica, N.Y.