FIREFIGHTERS BATTLE BLAZE, HEAT

A dramatic scene unfolded on the western edge of Freeman on a hot Saturday night, Aug. 22, as Freeman firefighters and EMTs were called to a fire in an abandoned two-story house on Cedar Street once owned by Richard and Barbara Salis.

The property is now owned by the city of Freeman.

The structure located just northwest of the city water tower was scheduled to set on fire in the upcoming weeks as a training opportunity for the Freeman Volunteer Fire Department, but happenstance beat the firefighters to the punch.

“We had planned to burn it down, and now all of a sudden it’s on fire,” Freeman Fire Chief Cody Fransen said on the scene after the majority of the structure had been taken down by the flames.

The unplanned fire forced the firefighters to adjust.

“We were trying to replay everything we were going to do when we did burn it ourselves — how we were going to protect the structures on the south side of the house and get a water wall set up. I don’t want to say there was confusion, but more or less nerves. Was somebody in there who lit it intentionally and was trapped? There were just a lot of unknowns initially.”

Click here for a photo gallery from the Cedar Street fire.

First-responders were called to the scene at 7 p.m. and arrived as smoke was billowing from the second-story windows. The first order of business was to enter the building to see if anybody was inside. Firefighters made entry through the front door on the east side of the house, checked the basement and the main floor and got to the top of the staircase to the second floor before encountering heavy smoke and extreme heat that forced them to retreat.

“The guys said it wasn’t safe and backed out,” Fransen said. “Sometimes that’s what you run into.”

Based on the deteriorating condition of the house — and the fact that it was scheduled to be taken down soon anyway — Fransen and his team quickly made the decision to let it burn. That meant feeding the smoldering fire on the second floor with oxygen by setting up ladders on the north and south side of the structure and breaking the windows — no easy task.

“You never know what’s on the back side of it,” he said. “Once you do break that glass it gives it that burst of fresh air and things can fly back at you.”

It also needed to be a coordinated effort; Fransen oversaw firefighters set up on both the south side and north side of the structure and communicating with them via radio.

“You have to talk back and forth so you don’t have people making their move at the same time and getting a big ‘woosh,’ he said. “Who knows what would happen then.”

Once the windows were broken, flames began taking over, and before long the heat of the fire forced firefighters and others nearby to back off. Within 15 minutes, the structure was fully engulfed. Josh Andersen, EMT captain and a member of both the Freeman Volunteer Fire Department and a firefighter at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, said fires like this one can become as hot as 1,500 degrees.

Meanwhile, water was everywhere. A steady, arching stream from a pumper truck made it rain over the area, a waterwall from a second hose provided both safety for the buildings to the south and cool relief for the firefighters, and firefighters used two other hoses to make sure the scene was safe and under control.

The heat of the fire wasn’t the only thing first-responders had to contend with. With temperatures still in the 90s when the call came in, the heat of the evening was a major concern for Fransen and the dozen firefighters who responded. That meant constant attention to the well-being of the crew and important work by EMTs on hand, who immediately checked over the firefighters who broke the windows to get the fire rolling and continually ously handed out battles of cold water and ice packs to firefighters who needed either.

“I say it every time, but I’m going to say it again; I have to thank the ambulance guys who were here, bringing us bottles of water, checking on the guys,” said the fire chief. “Stuff you take for granted.”

Fransen was impressed with the effort of the entire team.

“They did very well, especially under the circumstances,” he said.

The cause of the fire wasn’t known Saturday night, but several on the scene speculated the extreme heat of the day and the number of contents inside the home may have been enough to ignite the fire spontaneously.