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Grand Forks firefighters help fight blaze

  • Published
  • By Tim Flack
  • 319th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  Emergency responders from Grand Forks Air Force Base helped battle a massive fire that destroyed a grain elevator in the nearby town of Forest River on Tuesday night, according to base officials.

The base deployed a command-and-control package consisting of a 5,000-gallon water tender, crash truck and safety officer to assist as part of a mutual aid agreement with the country, according to Master Sgt. Norman Becker, with the base fire and emergency services department.

Base personnel made repeated trips throughout the night, delivering more than 25,000 gallons of water in their state-of-the-art equipment, according to Becker.

While the crash truck is primarily used for fighting aircraft fires, firefighters put its powerful roof turret to work spraying long blasts of water to "help extinguish the fire and provide a defensive operation to control the flying embers," Becker explained.

High winds made the fire especially difficult, and the base personnel helped protect about a dozen homes, four warehouses and hundreds of acres of wheat fields that had yet to be harvested.

Becker said the base personnel joined about 100 firefighters from about 10 local communities who joined forces that night.

Billowing black clouds could be seen for miles as the fire roared out of control and temperatures dipped toward freezing as the sun set.

"The American Red Cross showed up with a support vehicle providing food and hot/cold drinks as the temperatures lowered," Becker said.

Local community members made and served food for the emergency personnel on the scene, Becker said.

"We do not get the call for mutual aid very often, but when we do, we know we will be busy helping the surrounding community," Becker said.

Sergeant Becker said many people on the scene that night didn't even realize that the base personnel could - and would - assist in an emergency. He also said many "expressed their thanks for us helping them out."

"It is important to help the community off base because we simply can and it is the right thing to do," Sergeant Becker said. "Helping the community off base also allows the citizens to see us as in the military come and help when called."

Becker said that while there were no reported injuries or deaths, the devastation of the grain elevator was complete.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.