Hot Springs Fire Department saves The Running Iron

The Hot Springs Fire Department stopped a chimney fire from getting out of control and destroying The Running Iron restaurant early Thursday evening.

“We hope to be open in the next couple of weeks,” said Herb Blakemen, who along with his wife Wanda and son Brad have owned the Hot Springs' restaurant for over a decade. Blakemen said that there was no way he thought he would be able to say that when he saw the black smoke billowing from his restaurant, but thanks to the quick response of the fire department, the damage was limited. “There was a lot of people out there giving us a hand,” he said.

Hot Springs Fire Department Chief Randy Woods didn't have to travel far when the call came in at approximately 5:15 p.m. Woods said he was in his store, Spring Street Auto, which is right next store to The Running Iron, drinking coffee with a couple of patrons, when they noticed people starting to slow down to stare at the restaurant and the town police officer stopped outside the building, but they saw no smoke.

Woods said he thought the officer was just making a traffic stop and had went to his garage, before getting the call saying The Running Iron was on fire. He said he went outside and still couldn't see any smoke, but by the time he went to the fire hall and came back with a fire engine the smoke was everywhere.

“When we rounded the corner, that black smoke was just pushing on all the vents … you couldn't see the building across the street,” Woods said. “There was heavy black smoke just rolling out.”

Woods said the reason they couldn't see the smoke was because the wind was pushing the smoke and heat back into the building. “It actually got pretty hot in there,” he said. Woods said that once the 14 firefighters arrived at the scene, the flames were getting near to his building and there was a few minutes that he was concerned that the fire would spread to his business, but they quickly put a water hose on the flames and had it under control.

Woods said he knew the only access into the building was through the roof, so they pulled the sheeting off of the side of the building. “Once we finally got it opened and got water to it, it didn't take us but a few minutes to put the fire out,” Woods said. He said that once the fire was out he was able to put a few crews in the building to check for hot spots. “There was quite a bit of fires inside of it,” he said.

Woods said the fire started in the chimney where the old and new roof came together. He said the original roof structure was a mortar structure and a new metal roof structure had been added to it. “Where those two came together the fire got loose and came out of there and the rafters,” he said.

Blakemen said that most of the damage was contained to the roof structure and most of the repair to the actual restaurant will just be drying it out and cleaning it up. Woods said none of the wiring in the building was damaged and there was no significant structural damage. “They may need to replace a few boards here and there, but it wasn't that bad of a fire,” he said.

Woods said the fire department was able to limit the damage because of the quick response time, which with their current paging system isn't always the case. “The fire and ambulance have had a real bad time with our paging system,” he said. Woods said when the Sanders County Sheriff's Office pages them, they don't always get the page. “It has delayed our response time for nearly 20 minutes,” he said.

“Luckily, we didn't have that problem this time,” Woods said. “If that pager would have been delayed by five minutes that building would be totally gone,” he said.

The Hot Springs Ambulance also responded to the call and remained on scene in the event of injuries.