FIRE CHIEF RECALLS FALL INTO BURNING BASEMENT
August 25, 2016
There was nothing to indicate fire was coming from anywhere but the attic when two fire chiefs entered a burning home’s kitchen to begin an internal attack.
Nothing, that is, until one of them fell through the floor.
Blue Lake Township Fire Chief Jim PetrieCourtesy Blue Lake Township Fire Chief Jim Petrie said all indications were that the fire was in the attic of the home in Holton Township that caught fire before 1 p.m. Monday.
He and Dalton Township Fire Chief Alan Styles had responded to Holton Township’s call for help and entered the burning one-story dwelling on Syers Road not far from Holton High School.
“Every sign from the structure was that it was in the attic,” Petrie said. “Neither one of us had a clue that there was fire underneath us.”
Petrie said they had just noticed flames coming from behind the refrigerator when the floor gave way.
“(Styles) hollered out ‘Jimmy!’ I said, ‘I’m going down,'” Petrie said.
It wasn’t a hard fall into the home’s basement because Petrie ended up straddling electrical lines. Rather, he said, it was a “slow descent.”
“Initially there was that shock…Then I was like ‘Hey I’ve got to get my head back. I’ve got to get back in the game,'” Petrie said.
‘An eternity’
Styles quickly called out “Mayday!” on his radio – a signal that a firefighter was in distress and needed help. Holton Township Assistant Fire Chief Marc Hawk, who had command of the fire scene, for the first time in his 27-year career repeated the Mayday call to Central Dispatch, which cleared radio traffic off the fire channel and sounded a tone.
Firefighters at the scene scrambled to help. Styles passed a hose down the hole the chief fell through and Petrie used it to knock down fire to give himself a protected area. Petrie moved to a window and broke it out to give himself ventilation, maneuvering through thick smoke that narrowed his visibility to practically nothing.
For eight long minutes, Petrie worked to get himself into a position for rescue.
“I told people it felt really quick, and in other aspects, it felt like an eternity,” he said.
Eventually, a ladder was lowered through the hole in the floor and with the help of other firefighters, Petrie managed to haul his 6-foot-2-inch, 180-pound frame up from the burning basement. In the process, another firefighter suffered smoke inhalation and a second, one of Petrie’s from Blue Lake Township, sustained a shoulder injury.
Petrie too suffered smoke inhalation, and all three were transported to the hospital for observation — Petrie was driven there by his wife, who is a paramedic for Pro Med ambulance. The three were released from the hospital, though the firefighter with the shoulder injury will need ongoing treatment, Petrie said.
Mayday call issued, three firefighters hurt at scene of house fire
The Blue Lake Township chief was injured.
Throughout the ordeal, the biggest struggle was for all on the scene to stay calm, Petrie said. Fortunately for him, they had just two months earlier practiced this very type of firefighter rescue in a training exercise utilizing a home in Muskegon Heights slated for demolition. Petrie helped organize the four-hour training attended by eight departments and about 160 firefighters.
“We went through this exact scenario,” Petrie said Tuesday. “All that effort I put into that training, it paid itself back yesterday.”
‘The hard way’
Petrie was back at the fire scene Tuesday, helping with the investigation of the sequence of events that triggered the Mayday call. The findings will be shared with other fire departments “so they can learn the lessons we learned the hard way,” Petrie said.
The investigation into what caused the fire also continues. Hawk, the assistant chief in Holton Township, said the home at 6226 Syers is a total loss. The fire was particularly difficult to battle because it was a double-wide modular home – a notoriously difficult type of structure to fight fires in, he said.
In addition to Dalton and Blue Lake townships, firefighters responded from Fremont, Muskegon Township and White Lake.
They were on the scene for six hours, and Hawk was still at the station four hours after that.
“It definitely was one of the scariest things I’ve been through in my life,” Petrie said. “I came home, laid my turnout gear on the garage floor and looked at the damage that was done to it. I decided I needed a good night’s sleep.
“I got up this morning, gathered my other set of gear together, put it in my truck and got ready for the next fight.”
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Mayday call issued, three firefighters hurt at scene of house fire
Scenes from a house fire on Syers Rd. in Holton, Mich. on Monday, August 22, 2016. (Emily Brouwer | MLive.com)
Joel Bissell | jbissell@mlive.com
By Lynn Moore | lmoore8@mlive.com
on August 22, 2016 at 4:30 PM, updated August 22, 2016 at 10:04 PM
UPDATE, 10 p.m.: This story has been updated with additional information.
HOLTON TOWNSHIP, MI -- There were some very tense moments while firefighters battled a house fire Monday afternoon when a "mayday call" was sent out.
The call was issued when the Blue Lake Township fire chief fell through the floor of the home on fire and landed in the basement, according to Holton Township Fire Capt. Bryan Hawk.
The chief and two other firefighters were injured while battling the fire at 6226 Syers Road and taken to the hospital to be checked out, Hawk said. He classified their injuries as "minor."
The single-story home located near Holton High School sustained significant damage in the fire. Multiple fire departments were called to assist, including Blue Lake Township, Dalton Township, Muskegon Township, White Lake and Fremont departments.