MEDIA CONTEST: To the rescue - Offutt’s fire department sends team to calm the flames at a massive blaze in Council Bluffs

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ACC MEDIA CONTEST --  For the men and women of the Offutt Fire Department, the morning of Oct. 26 started normally enough.

At 7:20 a.m. the day shift arrived for roll call, ready to start their 24 hours on duty. With them was Tech. Sgt. Chris Sparks, a station captain and operations officer with 14 years of experience fighting fires across the Air Force.

"We knew when we arrived that morning there was a fire in Council Bluffs," Sergeant Sparks said. "But we didn't know how big it was, or whether we would be called to help put it out."

Three hours earlier a resident of Council Bluffs, Iowa, had called 911 to report a fire at a warehouse 20 miles east of the base. The warehouse was a distribution center for the Stern Oil Company, which provides motor oil and other automotive fluids for businesses throughout the Omaha area.

Local fire departments responded rapidly, but only had water and a small amount of foam to fight the petroleum-fueled fire. Rather than being smothered by the water, the thousands of gallons of flammable oil inside the warehouse simply floated on top of it.

By 8 a.m. the blaze had grown out of control, completely consuming the warehouse. Barrels of oil began to explode, sending flames nearly a hundred feet into the air and creating a vast plume of smoke that drifted toward Council Bluffs, prompting the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to issue an air quality alert.

"We got notification around 8:35 a.m. that our assistance was being requested," Sergeant Sparks said. "We got our team together, and a few minutes later we were on the way."

Offutt has mutual aid agreements with several local municipalities. When an emergency like the warehouse fire occurs, local emergency management or law enforcement can call on the base for assistance.

In this case, Offutt had something few other fire departments in the metro area had - foam fire retardant to mix with water. The foam is an essential tool in fighting aircraft fires, one of the most important jobs Air Force fire departments are tasked with. That foam, it was expected, would be just as effective when used against the warehouse fire.

While Sergeant Sparks was leading his team to the fire, Vincent Mahoney, an assistant fire chief for the Offutt Fire Department, was staying behind at the station to coordinate Offutt's response.

"It's great to be able to send a team out to help put down a fire," Mr. Mahoney said, "But ultimately our job is to take care of our own folks, to make sure that they're being used in a safe manner and to ensure that we're not sending out so many resources that we can't respond to an emergency back here."

Mr. Mahoney was the link between the crew who had just departed and the rest of the base. All requests for additional equipment, water or foam were routed through him, even as he was receiving dozens of queries from base agencies about the response.

By the time Sergeant Sparks' team arrived at the scene, the warehouse was completely engulfed. The local fire departments had pulled their units back and were focusing on containing the fire, rather that extinguishing it.

"There were 55-gallon drums popping off every few minutes," Sergeant Sparks said. "The fire was completely out of control."

As soon as they arrived on scene the team made contact with the incident commander to let him know what new resources were available. The team had brought more than 2,000 gallons of foam and special crash trucks to attack the fire.

One vehicle the team brought was Crash 16, a crash response truck, operated by Staff Sgt. Davie Hobbs.

"You could see the fire from the highway," Sergeant Hobbs said. "There were explosions going off inside the warehouse when we arrived."

After getting into position, Sergeant Hobbs started spraying the fire with the vehicle's turret. The foam, he said, quickly made a difference.

At about 10 a.m. the team called back to Mr. Mahoney to request another crash truck. It arrived soon and together the two vehicles were able to quickly put a dent in the fire.

By 1 p.m. the fire was declared under control, with only a few spot fires still burning inside the ruined structure. Little was left of the warehouse but a blackened metal shell that had largely collapsed. Charred vehicles surrounded the building, sitting in a new lake created by the tens of thousands of gallons of water used in the response.

"All the agencies out there did a great job," Sergeant Sparks said, commenting on the cooperation between the seven different fire departments from across the metro area that had responded. "But we really made the difference in that incident. That's what I'm most proud of."

"We knew it was dangerous, but we also knew we had a job to do," Sergeant Hobbs said. "We went in to get the fire out, and that's it."