AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
One of the most feared things in the bush is fire. Currently, Alaska, and other areas, are experiencing many forest fires that are close to inhabited areas and it is really great there is so much help to control them. This is about residential fires in the "old" days with no organized help.
In the early days of Wien at the Deadhorse airport at Prudhoe Bay, we lived in connected modular trailers heated by electric heat since everything was electric. This worked good since we had to have a pair of electric generators for power anyway. Another story later about the generators.
At one point, our Fairbanks base sent in a crew of two to replace a wood stave sewer line which drained into a holding area. The crew was wrapping the new wood pipe with a lead heat tape to keep it from freezing in the winter. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Well, not a smart crew anyway. The lead heat tape system is designed for cast iron pipe, not wood pipe and they didn't install a thermostat. This was being done in the summer so there was no need for the heat anyway. Come Friday, the crew flew back to Fairbanks for the weekend. Guess what? They forgot to disconnect the heat tape.
There was only two of us on station at the time and since there was nothing pressing at the time, we were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee when we noticed smoke coming out of the bathroom. Where there is smoke, there is fire, right? We jumped up and ran to the bathroom. I ran my hand over the wall and found a hot spot. I grabbed a fire ax and a big extinguisher and the other guy grabbed two extinguishers and we ran outside. The area where the smoke was coming from was where there was a wood cover over the sewer pipe where it left the trailer. We yanked that up, pulled the smoldering insulation out and emptied an extinguisher and it looked like it was out. Talk about getting scared....Only time I ever shook more was when I was sitting on the starting line of a drag race at the Lincoln, Nebraska Air Force Base while sitting next to a big hemi powered Model T pickup and I was in a 1929 Ford roadster with a big bad Chev engine that I had built. Both vehicles were about 45 inches high at the top of the windshield. Once the flag dropped, no more butterflies and talk about king when I beat him. By the way Western Nebraska, he was from your area, Scottsbluff as I recall.
Woops....back to the subject.
We went back inside and tried another cup of coffee in a grayish smoke filled room as we tried to calm down. All of a sudden, I looked over to the bathroom and saw some blue hued smoke moving around. I ran in and started feeling the wall again and boy was it hot. I ran into the office and got on the radio to the ARCO tower at their Prudhoe Bay airport and requested fire assistance. My partner was already outside chopping into the wall taking everything out from the ground to the roof. Lots of embers but once the air got to it, it really reddened up but still no flames. By the time the ARCO fire truck got there, we had used up all but one of our extinguishers. When the fire truck got there, it really sounded like it had a sick engine. They never had to use it but did drain a couple of extinguishers. When they opened the engine cover, they found 5 spark plugs had broken off at the threads and blown away on the trip over. It was doubtful if it would have had enough power to run the pump anyway. Lets see, it is about 8 road miles from the ARCO airport to the Deadhorse airport and it took them 7 minutes to get to us from the time I called for help. I asked the driver how fast he was moving and all he would say is as fast as it would go. That was a close one for Wien and us. I often wonder what would have happened had I not hired such a capable employee and he wasn't even a farm kid from the mid west. Without him, the entire place would have been lost.
Not long after that in the winter, there was a big fire that completely destroyed a hotel just behind the Wien terminal. The maintenance supervisor had sent a rather new hire to ARCO to pick up a load of arctic diesel fuel for their heating system. He picked up the load, probably 7,000 to 8,000 gal and pumped it into a nearly empty holding tank. Funny thing about diesel and gas in the arctic. Gas will float on top of the diesel when the diesel is cold and the gas is warm. After a period of time, the diesel was used up and the gas started entering the distribution lines to the furnaces in the modular trailers. First to go was the furnace closest to the storage tank. Than, just like clockwork, the others went. At least it gave everyone time to get some clothes on and get out side but there was never a chance to put the fire out. Lots of wind that blew right down all the hall ways where the furnaces were. In the arctic, the humidity is so low that those type of trailers are just like a tinder box. The hotel next door found room for everyone for a while.
The kid had picked up a load of motor gas instead of diesel. Whose fault? The maintenance surpriser as far as I am concerned. Key word? New hire.
These areas had almost no firefighting equipment and if they did, no telephones to call for help really. It is not that way now days but in the early 70s, it was scary.
When living at Umiat and Dahl Creek, fire was always my first concern and family health second. Can't protect the family without a place out of the weather. I always stood fire guard when cranking up DC-3s, C-46s and our 749 Connie but always wondered what I would do if there was a backfire that couldn't be sucked back in by continuing cranking. We never had the big extinguisher units on wheels. Our good old C-46, 82853, was notorious for backfires and lots of smoke on the cawling but never a real fire.
In the early days of Wien at the Deadhorse airport at Prudhoe Bay, we lived in connected modular trailers heated by electric heat since everything was electric. This worked good since we had to have a pair of electric generators for power anyway. Another story later about the generators.
At one point, our Fairbanks base sent in a crew of two to replace a wood stave sewer line which drained into a holding area. The crew was wrapping the new wood pipe with a lead heat tape to keep it from freezing in the winter. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Well, not a smart crew anyway. The lead heat tape system is designed for cast iron pipe, not wood pipe and they didn't install a thermostat. This was being done in the summer so there was no need for the heat anyway. Come Friday, the crew flew back to Fairbanks for the weekend. Guess what? They forgot to disconnect the heat tape.
There was only two of us on station at the time and since there was nothing pressing at the time, we were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee when we noticed smoke coming out of the bathroom. Where there is smoke, there is fire, right? We jumped up and ran to the bathroom. I ran my hand over the wall and found a hot spot. I grabbed a fire ax and a big extinguisher and the other guy grabbed two extinguishers and we ran outside. The area where the smoke was coming from was where there was a wood cover over the sewer pipe where it left the trailer. We yanked that up, pulled the smoldering insulation out and emptied an extinguisher and it looked like it was out. Talk about getting scared....Only time I ever shook more was when I was sitting on the starting line of a drag race at the Lincoln, Nebraska Air Force Base while sitting next to a big hemi powered Model T pickup and I was in a 1929 Ford roadster with a big bad Chev engine that I had built. Both vehicles were about 45 inches high at the top of the windshield. Once the flag dropped, no more butterflies and talk about king when I beat him. By the way Western Nebraska, he was from your area, Scottsbluff as I recall.
Woops....back to the subject.
We went back inside and tried another cup of coffee in a grayish smoke filled room as we tried to calm down. All of a sudden, I looked over to the bathroom and saw some blue hued smoke moving around. I ran in and started feeling the wall again and boy was it hot. I ran into the office and got on the radio to the ARCO tower at their Prudhoe Bay airport and requested fire assistance. My partner was already outside chopping into the wall taking everything out from the ground to the roof. Lots of embers but once the air got to it, it really reddened up but still no flames. By the time the ARCO fire truck got there, we had used up all but one of our extinguishers. When the fire truck got there, it really sounded like it had a sick engine. They never had to use it but did drain a couple of extinguishers. When they opened the engine cover, they found 5 spark plugs had broken off at the threads and blown away on the trip over. It was doubtful if it would have had enough power to run the pump anyway. Lets see, it is about 8 road miles from the ARCO airport to the Deadhorse airport and it took them 7 minutes to get to us from the time I called for help. I asked the driver how fast he was moving and all he would say is as fast as it would go. That was a close one for Wien and us. I often wonder what would have happened had I not hired such a capable employee and he wasn't even a farm kid from the mid west. Without him, the entire place would have been lost.
Not long after that in the winter, there was a big fire that completely destroyed a hotel just behind the Wien terminal. The maintenance supervisor had sent a rather new hire to ARCO to pick up a load of arctic diesel fuel for their heating system. He picked up the load, probably 7,000 to 8,000 gal and pumped it into a nearly empty holding tank. Funny thing about diesel and gas in the arctic. Gas will float on top of the diesel when the diesel is cold and the gas is warm. After a period of time, the diesel was used up and the gas started entering the distribution lines to the furnaces in the modular trailers. First to go was the furnace closest to the storage tank. Than, just like clockwork, the others went. At least it gave everyone time to get some clothes on and get out side but there was never a chance to put the fire out. Lots of wind that blew right down all the hall ways where the furnaces were. In the arctic, the humidity is so low that those type of trailers are just like a tinder box. The hotel next door found room for everyone for a while.
The kid had picked up a load of motor gas instead of diesel. Whose fault? The maintenance surpriser as far as I am concerned. Key word? New hire.
These areas had almost no firefighting equipment and if they did, no telephones to call for help really. It is not that way now days but in the early 70s, it was scary.
When living at Umiat and Dahl Creek, fire was always my first concern and family health second. Can't protect the family without a place out of the weather. I always stood fire guard when cranking up DC-3s, C-46s and our 749 Connie but always wondered what I would do if there was a backfire that couldn't be sucked back in by continuing cranking. We never had the big extinguisher units on wheels. Our good old C-46, 82853, was notorious for backfires and lots of smoke on the cawling but never a real fire.
