Friday, May. 16, 2008

Two lightning fires show need for help

Staff report

Two recent Keller house fires starting just minutes apart point to the benefit of adding a third fire station and the importance of mutual aid agreements with surrounding cities, a fire official said this week.

During an April 23 storm, lightning struck two homes in different parts of the city.

The first call came in at 8:42 p.m. from the 1200 block of Clark Springs Drive, just north of Keller Parkway near Keller-Smithfield. Lightning struck the chimney of the house, setting the attic on fire. Fire and water damage to the home and its contents was estimated at $120,000.

While all of the city’s trucks were on scene at the first fire, another 911 call was made at 9 p.m. A home in the 1500 block of Smoketree Drive, near North Tarrant and Rufe Snow, was also struck by lightning. Fire and water caused more than $60,000 in damage to the property.

Bruce Mueller, Keller fire marshal, said the city’s mutual aid agreement with surrounding cities went into action. Keller sent a medic team and a fire operations chief to the second fire, and two trucks from North Richland Hills, one from Watauga and a fourth from Colleyville also responded. "None of us have the resources to do two fires at once."

In fact, any big structure fire usually brings requests for mutual aid. Trucks from Southlake and Colleyville were helping at the site of the first fire when the second call came in, Mueller said.

"It is very unusual to have multiple significant calls at once," he said.

Keller city officials are looking forward to having more equipment and personnel with the 2009 opening of the third fire station in Hidden Lakes.

Mueller said the new station would not eliminate the need for mutual aid agreements but would improve response times throughout the area.

Last summer, amid storms that produced serious flooding, Haltom City firefighters were conducting a swift-water rescue in Keller when they were called back to their city because of flooding of a mobile-home park on White Creek Road.