St. Anna Fire Department website
Article by Ben Jones at postcrescent.com:
A 33-year-old St. Anna firefighter died and four other firefighters were injured, one seriously, in an explosion Tuesday night at a foundry just west of the unincorporated community in southern Calumet County.
Image from the St. Anna Fire Department website.
Calumet County Sheriff Gerald Pagel, who declined to immediately identify any of the victims, said there was no initial indication of what caused the blast in a dumpster at Bremer Manufacturing, W2002 County Q. The company is located about one mile west of St. Anna. The scene is not far from Fond du Lac and Sheboygan counties.
The blast occurred in one of several dumpsters located about 50 feet from the highway.
Pagel said the state fire marshal and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were being called in to assist with the investigation.
Pagel said one of his officers on patrol saw a fire on the Bremer grounds about 7:20 p.m. and called for the St. Anna Fire Department to respond.
No employees were at the foundry at the time of the fire. Bremer officials could not be reached for comment.
The 33-year-old victim was pronounced dead at the scene, said Calumet Sheriff’s Lt. Brett Bowe.
Megan Wilcox, a spokeswoman for Appleton-based ThedaCare, said one firefighter was in critical condition at Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah after being flown there by ThedaStar helicopter.
She had no information about the victim’s identity or extent of injuries.
The other three firefighters had non-life-threatening injuries and were being treated at Calumet Medical Center in Chilton, Pagel said. Their identities were not released.
Alice Thome, who lives about a quarter mile from the foundry, said she heard an explosion some time before 8 p.m. “It sort of shook everything,” she said.
David Boll, who lives about a half mile from the site, said he heard the blast at about 7:50 p.m.
“It rocked the house,” he said.
Boll immediately drove to the scene to see what happened.
“There was a large plume of white smoke in the sky,” he said.
Boll said he left after he saw firefighters were already on the scene. He said officials blocked off about a one-mile stretch of County Q.
Bill Braun, who lives about 500 feet from the blast, said he was home with his wife, Linda Suda, at the time. He thought something had exploded inside his house.
“It just shook everything,” he said. “Things fell off the wall. It just rocked the house. It was just a bad explosion.”
Braun said he went to the blast scene and said the front of the Bremer building did not appear to be damaged.
“You wouldn’t think the building would still be standing. This was a real bad explosion,” he said.
Suda said she thought a car had hit their house. “We have cracks in the wall that we didn’t have before,” she said. “It was massive.”
Suda said this event will be difficult for the area.
“It’s a really close-knit community,” she said. “Everybody knows everybody, and everyone is related.”
After the explosion, the New Holstein and Kiel fire departments relieved St. Anna firefighters at the scene. Also responding were New Holstein first responders and the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department.
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As a once Director of Emergency Services, to hear of a First Responder dying or injured is always more disturbing then when I was a regular citizen. Hearing there was an explosion makes me automatically submise this is very suspicious. First Responders, always remember we are living in a very different world than before, and there are individuals out there playing a very dangerous game. Train hard and serious always, we need you!
We should all take this as a life lesson. NEVER EVER under estimate any fire. How many times have we all moaned and groaned because we were rolling on yet another dumpster fire and then treated it as an everyday trash fire? Always assume that the fire has the potential to kill.
What a tragic, sad story. God Bless the injured firefighters and their deceased Brother.