Triple threat overwhelms local firefighters
Gilroy – Three Gilroy fires in one hectic night left local firefighters stressed, and struggling to keep up.
“It taxed the whole South County, as far as resources,” said division chief Clay Bentson. “It’d be nice to have enough equipment to respond to all these incidents, but we just can’t afford it.”
Firefighters were alerted to a grassfire near an abandoned building at Murray Avenue and Las Animas Road at 5:24pm Wednesday.
To battle the blaze, the Gilroy Fire Department sent two engines from its Chestnut station, two from its Las Animas station, and a rescue rig from its Sunrise station. Four more engines sped to the scene: two from South Santa Clara Fire District, and two from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. By 6:40pm, the fire was under control, and off-duty personnel were staffing one vacant station. That fire is being investigated as an arson case.
Not long after, the second call came in, and then the third.
At 7:46pm, a “suspicious” blaze ignited on Seventh Street between Monterey and Eigleberry streets, said Bentson, in a vacant lot, “the site of the new theatrical building that the city’s going to build, eventually.” A truck and two engines rushed away from the embers at Murray Avenue to help, “but when the third fire came in, we were pretty much tapped out,” said Bentson.
The third call came within minutes of the second, at 7:49pm. The Temple Inland plant on Jamieson Way, which manufactures cardboard boxes, reported a small fire, caused by a mechanical failure in its dust collection system. Firefighters called San Jose County Fire for backup. Bentson described the scary scenario.
“You hear of a fire at a five-acre paper plant, and you have no resources to throw at it, and the firefighters are coming from San Jose,” he said. “Fortunately, the second incident, on Seventh Street, was under control fairly quickly, and we were able to divert resources to the fire at the paper plant.”
Two engines and three chief officers arrived at the plant to find the blaze already extinguished by employees. The San Jose vehicles were sent to the Masten Avenue fire station, where they filled in for firefighters out quelling the fires.
“It’s one of those unique occurrences where things happen all at once,” said Bentson. “But it seems like it’s becoming more and more common.”
With Friday and Saturday declared as “red flag days,” when offshore winds and low humidity nurture fire, the fire department is bracing for more activity.
“We’re keeping our troops on alert,” Bentson said. “There’s a good chance if something doesn’t happen here locally, something could happen statewide.”
