Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Three-Alarm Blaze Guts Abandoned San Jose Warehouse

     

Photo from the San Jose Fire Dept.
On January 14, which was a cool, 44-degree mid-winter morning, Fire Associates was paged to a 3-alarm fire at 380 Terraine Street. Located just north of San Jose Fire Station No. 1, the fire was burning in an large, abandoned industrial warehouse. The 1-square-block site included the involved 12,000-square-foot structure located on the southeast corner of Terraine Street and Bassett Street. 
     
First-arriving firefighters discovered that the entire bowed-truss roof was fully involved. A second alarm was quickly called to bring adequate equipment and personnel to the scene. A surround-and-drown strategy was initialed with Trucks 1, 29, and 30 providing aerial master streams. The IC for the incident was BC Joel Phelan, who happened to be working his last shift before retirement. What a way to go out!
    
When the third alarm was struck, Fire Associates was called for rehab assistance.  John Whiteside responded from Station 6 with Fire Support Unit 2, while John Whitaker went to the scene in his personal vehicle. After conferring with SJ Med30, Mike Van Elgort, a rehab location was decided upon in a parking lot across San Pedro Street from the fire. This was also the location of the incident command center. John and John were later joined by FASCV member Mike Garcia.
   
Photo by John Whitaker
When FSU-2 arrived on scene, a rehab area was established to provide hot coffee, hot chocolate, and Clif Bars to the fire crews as they were relieved. As a "surprise", a pink box or two of donuts were anonymously provided to the firefighters. Something about "...Joel's last shift."
  
When the fire was totally contained and under control, fire companies were put back into service and rehab was broken down by 7:10 A.M.
-- Report submitted by John Whitaker