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Watch: Wash. ladder truck pulls burning dumpster away from building

Not having any water, Lacey firefighters decided to pull the dumpster away from the building while waiting on an engine company

By Rolf Boone
The Olympian

LACEY, Wash. — A quick-thinking lieutenant behind the wheel of a Lacey Fire District 3 truck decided to tow a burning dumpster away from a commercial building early Tuesday morning, the department posted on social media.

At about 2:40 a.m. Tuesday, fire crews were dispatched to a dumpster on fire in the 700 block of Sleater Kinney Road Southeast, near the Fred Meyer shopping center in Lacey.

Although fire engine E31 was set to respond to the blaze, the driver of TK31 decided to divert to the fire as well, based on how serious the blaze sounded, according to the post.

“They arrived to find a huge dumpster, five feet from a commercial building, with flames extending higher than the roof. The building and roof were literally seconds from catching on fire,” the post reads.

“Having no water to extinguish the dumpster fire, the truck crew took the only action available to them given the circumstances. They hooked up chains to the dumpster and pulled it away from the building. This was more than three minutes before E31 arrived to extinguish the fire.”

The truck crew’s fast actions prevented a commercial roof fire and saved tens of thousands of dollars in fire damage, according to the post.

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