Superior home completely destroyed in fire
<p>Snow falls on the remnants of a house on Diamond Match Road that was destroyed in a fire.</p>
The cause of a fire that burned down a home on Diamond Match Road on March 19 is still unknown.
Superior Volunteer Fire Chief John Woodland received an emergency call Monday afternoon and responded immediately to the scene where the house was already covered with flames and heavy dark smoke.
“I don’t think if I had a hydrant right out front and five trucks and 30 firefighters right there on the spot that building could have been saved,” Chief Woodland said.
According to Chief Woodland, the owners of the home were in the process of moving to Williston, North Dakota to work in the oil industry. One of the members of the Superior Volunteer Fire Department was living in a fifth wheel on the property and beginning to move into the house at the time the fire started.
When he saw the fire, he immediately rushed in to save the family’s dogs, which he was able to accomplish without injury.
“Quite frankly, and I’ve talked to him about it, I think he was very close to not coming back out,” Chief Woodland said. “He took some very heavy smoke in from that and just a couple more breaths and I don’t think he would have maintained consciousness.”
Chief Woodland said that when he arrived to the scene the firefighters were unable to open the structure and attack the fire without venting it – something they were unable to do because putting a firefighter on the roof would have been too dangerous.
“You just had to wait a little bit and let the fire vent itself by breaking out of the structure essentially,” Chief Woodland said. “You balance the safety with what you are going to accomplish – in that sense it was a very easy fire to make decisions about because it wasn’t a close issue.”
If the firefighters had taken risks to try to attack the fire, Chief Woodland said there still would have been a burnt out shell of a house that would still need to be completely demolished.