Firefighters needed so much water to battle a huge grain elevator blaze that they had to ask the whole town to go without — even canceling school to conserve the water supply, officials said.
The cause of the fire isn’t yet known; a fire marshal began an investigation. It took firefighters responding from 17 communities about eight hours to extinguish the blaze in the town of about 2,200 people, which was reported about 11 p.m. Sunday, said Hawley City Administrator Lonnie Neuner. No injuries were reported.
Firefighters even used water from the local golf course because the town’s water tower couldn’t keep up, Neuner said. Their ladder hoses each use about 600 gallons a minute, about as much as Hawley’s system can pump, Neuner said. He expected the city would allow water usage to resume “pretty soon.”
I feel like a chopper with a bucket attachment would have been better than sending in trucks.
Letting it burn down would be best, it’s going to be torn down and destroyed anyway if it was that hard to put out.
Edit: not sure I empathize with those downvoting me, I dont see a world where a private business’s asset, which is covered by insurance, is worth the health and safety of an entire community for any length of time.
Sorry Helen, we can’t run your dialasys machine because it would inconvenience Mr. Landowner. Sorry Martha, I know you’ve just been in a lab accident and your skin is melting off, but we need the emergency shower water for Mr. Businessman so that he thinks we’re doing work instead of caring about our community.
Agreed. Just dig a trench around it instead of making an entire town go without water.