By Cindy Stauffer
Lancaster New Era (Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2006 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
LANCASTER, Pa. — Normally firefighters get on their trucks and pull away after a fire, leaving behind the smoky, smelly mess.
But today was anything but a normal day at the Elizabethtown Fire Department.
Today, the smoky, smelly mess was its own, after a fire late Wednesday night at the North Mount Joy Street firehouse.
The fire, believed to be electrical and accidental in nature, destroyed the firehouse’s bunkroom. The damage is estimated to be between $150,000 and $200,000.
Mike Smith, 19, was one of three firefighters awakened by the blaze.
“I was in and out of sleeping, and I thought I was dreaming at first,” he said of being roused by flashing strobe lights and loud alarms. “Then I smelled it and I thought, ‘Wait, you can’t smell stuff in your dreams.’ ”
Smith’s first concern was for two other firefighters who were sleeping in another part of the building. Once the three found each other in the smoke-filled firehouse, they turned their attention to fighting the fire.
Today, the department turned its attention to cleaning up.
It was a day for unity, and moving forward.
“Everybody’s got gumption or fortitude,” said Jeremy Shaffner, a fire department spokesman. “They never give up. It’s not part of the firefighter way.”
The fire was full of ironies for the 40-person department.
For starters, the volunteer department was in the midst of installing a sprinkler system, which would have been completed in about two weeks.
Also, renovations had just been finished on the bunkroom that now is a charred shambles.
The bunkroom usually houses seven firefighters, who actually live at the station for a more rapid response to fire calls. Others sometimes also bunk there, with as many as 15 or 16 occasionally staying overnight on weekends.
New carpeting just had been installed in the spacious room. Wooden bunks with red posts, made by the firefighters themselves, were being set up, and firefighters were starting to move in their personal belongings.
Fortunately, due to the demands of their schedules, only the three firefighters were at the department when the fire broke out at 11:30 p.m.
Smith was sleeping in a lounge to the rear of the building. The other two were sleeping in a conference room that temporarily was serving as a bunkroom while renovations were being done.
Smith said when he saw the smoke coming from the new bunkroom he worried that one of the other two men had decided to sleep there overnight.
“Then I saw them. They were both fine, standing there with each other,” he said.
The firefighters called 911 and then grabbed their gear as they left the building. Other firefighters quickly started arriving, everyone donning their boots, helmets and protective clothing at the firehouse.
Firefighters pulled the trucks out of the building, hooked lines up to a hydrant right outside the front bay. Help also began arriving from other departments, including Rheems, Mount Joy, Rohrerstown, Middletown and the Susquehanna Fire Company.
The fire was under control within about 45 minutes, Shaffner said.
The experience was “surreal” for firefighters, who were knocking down flames in a station they know like the backs of their hands.
Randy Gockley, county emergency management coordinator, said fires at a fire station are “absolutely unusual.” He could recall only two in the past 30 years.
“Usually, we’re dispatched to a call, come to the station and go out,” Shaffner said. “Here we were going into our own station, not knowing what we were getting into. You’re in your own house, trying to save things.”
Other departments also said it was an experience they won’t soon forget.
“The best I can say is it’s a whole new intensity level or adrenaline level when you hear it’s a working fire at a bunkroom at a neighboring fire department,” said Rheems Chief Chuck Stanford. “You don’t know who’s in that bunkroom or what’s going on. The first thing is, where’s everybody at?”
After the fire was out, Rheems gathered “grub” for a 3 a.m. breakfast, where the firefighters could gather and talk about what had happened.
They also are offering space in their own bunkroom for the men who are temporarily displaced.
“It’s a total brotherhood,” Stanford said, adding his department is glad to do whatever it can to help Elizabethtown.
Other help was offered today. Joe DiBart sloshed through the sooty water that covered the bunkroom floor this morning, examining damage to the station’s water pipes. He said his Elizabethtown plumbing and heating company would help do repairs for free.
“This is a tightknit community,” he said. “These guys do a tremendous job.”
Shaffner said the department is grateful for the support.
“Last night, tons of people were stopping by,” he said. “People are opening their homes, clothing is being passed around.”
The department, which expects its damages to be covered by insurance, will remain fully operational as it repairs the damages, continuing to fight fires in other parts of the community.
“We’re still here,” he said.