Tuesday, August 9, 2022 | 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Katey Pratt, BA, Dispatcher, South Metro Fire Rescue; Matthew Lewis, Dispatcher, South Metro Fire Rescue
“This unprecedented fire was a perfect storm for disaster.”
When South Metro Fire Rescue began receiving multiple calls of a fire in a rural area on June 5, 2021, their first instinct was to treat it as a brush fire. As calls poured in from as far as 50-70 miles away, reporting the vast plume of black smoke, telecommunicators tried to determine the exact location and the size of the fire.
Then, one caller gave the telecommunicators new information. The fire, he said, was at a fracking site. The telecommunicator asked a few different questions, but at no fault of her own, she had no idea of the significance of this information. Of the seven telecommunicators on duty that day, none had worked a fracking fire, and none were aware of the extreme dangers of this type of fire.
Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into the ground to release gas from rock layers. Fracking sites, like the one on fire in Bennett County, Colorado, have a number of chemicals and explosives on site. Once on scene, responders knew they were dealing with a volatile situation. Still, it became enormously clear when they were given a 3-inch binder full of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the site.
Due to the potential explosion, responders moved the staging out, first a 1-mile radius from the scene, then later to a 3-mile radius away from the scene. The airspace around the fire scene had to be cleared and was later extended further out. Telecommunicators had to keep a close eye on a storm cell south of the fire, which ultimately changed the direction and speed of the wind.
The chemicals and explosives would have to be removed from the hot zone to fight the fire. It took hours and specialized bomb technicians, to accomplish this dangerous task. Once the chemicals were safely removed, firefighters moved in and extinguished the fire in a mere 34 minutes.
Not everything went right, and there were lessons learned. But through it all, the ECC came together as a team, kept calm and focused, and thought outside the box to use resources that could ensure everyone’s safety.
By Tina Chafin
