By Kelly Smith
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
DELAFIELD, Wis. — His voice occasionally cracking with emotion, Jack Edwards, chief of Lake Country Fire and Rescue, gave his governing board last week a detailed and dramatic account of the Sunday, July 1, fire in downtown Oconomowoc that killed a 45-year-old woman and nearly claimed the life of a veteran firefighter who was trying to rescue her.
Sharon Phillips, 45, died while trying to escape her second-floor apartment on North Main Street. The blaze started in the back of the commercial building, and flames blocked a main exit out of her apartment.
Her body was found near a front exterior window, Edwards said.
Oconomowoc Fire Department Lt. Michael LaVenture, 58, is home recovering after Lake Country Fire and Rescue paramedics rushed him to Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital for treatment in a hyperbaric chamber, which uses pure, high-pressure oxygen to treat severe smoke inhalation.
Edwards told the Fire Board that LaVenture was within “a minute or two” of death when firefighters found him in the upstairs apartment.
“He is planning to be back to work by August, but I think he is being a little optimistic,” Edwards said.
Lake Country Fire and Rescue was one of more than a dozen fire departments that assisted the City of Oconomowoc in fighting the blaze. Lake Country Fire and Rescue serves the City of Delafield and the Villages of Nashotah and Chenequa.
Edwards issues a monthly report to the fire board that oversees the department.
Much of Edward’s report was based on information from Oconomowoc Deputy Fire Chief Glenn Leidel.
Leidel has publicly thanked all the fire departments, as well as the Oconomowoc community, for their assistance with the fire. He said the rapid response by fire departments helped avert a more serious disaster.
Edwards told the board that fighting the fire was physically and emotionally challenging. They were working in 96-degree heat fighting a fire that had already killed one person, seriously endangered one of their co-workers and that threatened a city block of buildings.
“This has hit everyone very hard. It has been very emotional for all of us. He may be with a different department, but he is still a co-worker to all of us. We have worked and trained with him for years. I have never experienced the loss of a firefighter at a scene, and I don’t ever want to,” he said.
“You hear about how tough and unemotional firefighters are supposed to be.
Well, I can tell you, none of us want to go through the experience of losing one of our own,” he added, his voice cracking.
Edwards added that Lake Country Fire and Rescue paramedics were on standby in Oconomowoc occasionally while Oconomowoc firefighters went through stress and counseling therapy as a result of the trauma of the fire. Edwards said there were about 20 Lake Country Fire and Rescue personnel on duty during the fire.
Edwards said he anticipates state and federal authorities will investigate why an alarm on LaVenture’s portable breathing apparatus did not sound when he collapsed.
Also, a strap on a harness wrapped around Phillips in an effort to lift her to a window either slipped or snapped, sending two firefighters tumbling to the floor in a room where the smoke was so thick there was zero visibility, according to Edwards.
LaVenture was one of three firefighters who went into the burning building to search for Phillips.
“The smoke was just very thick,” Edwards said, noting the firefighters were using a thermal-image camera in an effort to locate her.
“At first, they may have missed her, but they doubled back and found her,” Edwards added.
LaVenture somehow became separated from his two colleagues during the rescue attempt. He began calling “mayday, mayday” in his portable radio as his oxygen supply — which usually lasts about 20 minutes — began depleting.
At every large structure fire, according to Edwards, there a Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) made up of specially trained and equipped volunteers from various community departments.
The team’s sole responsibility is to be prepared to rescue firefighters who become trapped or buried in a building.
Edwards said it was the quick reaction of the RIT team members who went into the building and retrieved LaVenture, saving his life.
Edwards said the fire represented one of the worst nightmares for all Lake Country departments, a major structure fire in a downtown district where buildings that are more than 100-years-old are lined together along the city’s main streets.
“It has always been expected that if we ever had a fire in one building we would lose the whole block, we were setting up (for) that,” explained Edwards.
Edwards said the fire command center considered demolishing the building in an effort to control the fire.
Initially, firefighters thought the fire was concentrated in the apartments, but later discovered it was racing through the interior roofing of the building.
At one point, firefighters were pouring an estimated 6, 000 gallons of water a minute on the fire, Edwards said.
The firefighters began pumping water out of nearby lakes because they were concerned that the city’s water system would lose pressure because of the large volume of water being pumped from the system onto the fire. Leidel later said he also wanted the water supply on hand in case the fire spread or the building collapsed.
Firefighters and five pumper trucks arrived from Jefferson County to help pump the water and stand by to provide relief to firefighters who spent most of the afternoon and much of the evening fighting the fire and then gathering up equipment.
Edwards said the rapid response by about 100 firefighters with scores of pieces of equipment from Lake Country and beyond indicates how mutual aid agreements can unite the departments at a time of crisis.
Edwards said the departments, all of them depending heavily on volunteers, often train together about how they would respond to such an emergency.
“Everything that was supposed to happen, happened.
Everything that was supposed to work, worked,” he said.
Copyright 2012 Journal Sentinel Inc.