Photo by Jeff Beiermann at The World-Herald.
Read and watch coverage from KETV-TV
The video at top is apparently a fairly early view of the fire. The picture below it was taken from essentially the same angle a few hours later. It seems to tell the story of what must have been a very frustrating and sad day in North Bend, Nebraska.
The fire department was alerted around 2:00 PM yesterday. The fire was still burning through the cold night. It is believed to have consumed one-eighth of the downtown commercial area.
The fire destroyed the beauty salon where it apparently started, the weekly newspaper’s office & historic archives, a massage parlor, a tanning salon, a welding shop, a bar and an apartment above the bar.
Here are excerpts from David Hendee’s article at Omaha.com on how the fire was discovered:
Nathan Arneal, publisher and editor of the North Bend Eagle, said he thought he smelled smoke after arriving at the office about 11 a.m. Monday.
“It smelled like something was burning, but we figured it was exhaust from the heavy equipment moving snow outside or that smell you get when the heater kicks on,” Arneal said. “We smelled that for a couple of hours.”
After going to lunch about 1:30 p.m., Arneal received a phone call from his mother, Mary Le Arneal, who said smoke was seen coming from the A Little Off the Top salon next door. Mary Le Arneal is the newspaper’s office manager and a reporter.
Nathan Arneal said he and his mother called the owners of the salon while an out-of-state visitor reported the fire to authorities.
“By that time, you could see smoke from the top of the buildings,” Nathan Arneal said.
Andy Bourek, the husband of salon operator Autumn Bourek, arrived and sprayed a fire extinguisher on flames burning through a small hole in the front of the building.The Arneals carried computers, cameras and expensive equipment out of the newspaper office.
“It looked like we would be OK,” Nathan Arneal said. “At that time, it didn’t seem like that big a deal. I wish we had carried more stuff out.”
Also on STATter911 …
- Early video: Man brought down from roof of burning Portland, Maine apartment building. Two others hurt, including woman rescued by a neighbor. – February 21, 2012
- Video: Two-alarms in DC. Hook Restaurant in Georgetown burns at lunch hour. – June 29, 2011
- Blaine, Pennsylvania house fire kills seven children. Bodies found in Perry County farmhouse. – March 9, 2011
- Denver Fire Department says they ‘could have done a better job’ after no units were sent on smoke investigation. House fire found about 90 minutes later. – February 11, 2012
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Whatever you do don’t call the fire department!
According to reports, the occupants smelled smoke 3 hours prior to calling the FD. Looks like this thing got a pretty significant headstart. Probably many voids, open spaces and renovations for this thing to travel throughout the structure.
Seems like it was hardly the FDs fault Anon.
Wonder how soon or if the roof got vented on the bravo exposures
Someone has to ask if there was a command sturcture at this incident. Who was developing the strategy and who was implementing the tactics to confine this fire to the building or origin. Why did it spread to ajoining buildings. From the video I saw lots of FF’s standing around. Its nice to have a vol fire dept made up of the residents of a small town, however, telling the owners of the destroyed buildings ” I’m just a locksmith during the day” is not a valid reason to have this level of destruction. Someone needs to ask the hard questins of the qualifications of the leadership of the VFD. I am FAR away, but 30 yrs on the job makes me have to speak up!!!
But hey, those business owners got the front on their business pressure washed by the fire department and their sidewalks washed down by those nice guys on the hoseline. What more do they want???
I agree no interior attack, let just hit the smoke were we can see it an hope the fire goes out. I’m in a VFD for over 18 yrs, and we stopped hit smoke with water well over 25 yrs ago. I think it’s time for these guys to play catch up.
Easy to criticize when you’re not there. I wasn’t there either but I can tell from the photos/video that this is type III construction, probably with a cockloft to facilitate fire spread along with other voids. A three hour head start probably made this a loser before the first nozzle was opened.
I agree with Chief Joe, However is the only apparent venthole the place to put a hose line when a few mins. later you have F/F coming out the door, Also i see them using a portable pond when the 2nd video shows a hyd. about 200′ away. Whats up with that??
Chief Joe is correct the building of origin was a loser from the begining. So the next move is to get into the exposures and keep the fire in the building of origin. Protect the exposures !! I am asking if anyone looked to see if the fire traveled the entire lenght of the row of buildings. A spokesman mentioned they tried to pull the ceiling but ran into problems???? Whats the problem, no other efforts.
It has been reported that the cause was electrical short. Unless someone was interviewed from the building or origin that they observed an electrical event, arc into a flamable source, it seems to be a quick determination. Look at the level of destruction, did we dig to that electrical source this quickly??
These comments are intended to create discussion on how the incident scene was managed or lack of. Lets recall the Super Sofa fire in Charleston SC and the Glouster Mass fire of last christmas time in the residential building. The size of the community or size of the dept does not change what needs to be done on the fireground
I can agree with Chief Joe that the building of origin was a loser from the arrival of the VFD. So then the next move is to get into the exposures and protect them !! How far did the fire travel, all 8 buildings?? I do not see any hose lines going into the exposures, the doors to these buildings are closed.
A fire spokesman said that they tried to pull the ceiling “but had problems”. What does that mean? Did they make second efforts to check the extent of the fire spread?
It seems that exterior hose lines are the only attack on any building. The point of the occasional burst of water in the vent hole on the front wall from the hoseline in front of the salon escapes me. Did the onscene commander know the extention of the fire, was there an incident commander?
I find it interesting that in the morning after video the building or origin(beauty shop) is standing, although gutted and the ajoining building are collasped. This was a large fire incident, was the local VFD overwhelmed. Did they ever prefire plan for an event in these occupancies?
I am trying to generate discussion on the incident management of this fire, what was it; was there any?, were reasonable tactics applied? There was no lose of life here, but are we looking at another Super Sofa Fire of Charleston SC or the christmas time fire in Glouster, Mass in a residential building.
Can one eighth of a downtown be destroyed without probing questions?
Hey I shot these videos. I can tell you at 10 below outside it was not fun. I will say that the water pressure in town was horrible and not fire hydrants downtown.