On Thursday morning, firefighters from the Alliance Volunteer Fire Department and the Hemingford Volunteer Fire Department teamed up to halt the spread of a fire at New Alliance.
AVFD Chief Troy Shoemaker explained that they were dispatched to the report of a fire at approximately 6:51 a.m.
“It was a grain elevator distributor fire,” said Shoemaker. “So, what they found out was they had fire and smoke coming from the top of a distributor conveyor assembly on top of some bins out there at New Alliance Bean. I know that most of the fire was on the conveyor belts. It did not make it in to the bins that were full of beans. They checked about 12 bins out there and there was nothing reported burning inside of them, which is a good thing. Mainly what burned up was the conveyor belt systems that move grain from bin to bin.”
Shoemaker said the AVFD responded with 12 firefighters and they called for mutual aid from Hemingford, which sent four firefighters. The fire was contained and firefighters cleared the scene at 11:48 a.m. He noted that no one was injured during the fire.
Shoemaker explained that as they were battling the blaze, firefighters faced some challenges.
“Murphy’s law always has something to play with it,” Shoemaker said. “We had a few issues with some hydrants. We also, while they were combating the fire, we lost our fire department repeater that’s up at the hospital. So, instead of using a repeated channel, they had to use a talk around channel. We’ve since had those radio issues fixed, so we no longer have any radio issues with our repeater. It’s up and running the way it’s supposed to. The guys adapted and overcame, and we took care of what we needed to take care of, so I’m pretty proud on that.”