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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Sweetwater Home Engulfed In Flames









Chris Coray, Reporter
Rich Civic Times

GARDEN CITY, Utah.   April 17, 2014. A rapidly burning fire completely destroyed a new cabin on the South Sweetwater Parkway.  The cabin, owned by Wendy Williams of Brigham City, Utah, was engulfed in flames in a matter of minutes.  No one was in the cabin at the time of the fire, which started in daylight near evening.

The Garden City Fire Department and the Laketown Fire Department responded with speed and with multiple pieces of equipment and manpower.  After initially controlling the main blaze with large amounts of water the charred walls were still upright but bowed and tilted, threatening a collapse in subsequent hours so Garden City Fire Chief Mike Wahlberg decided to allow the fire to continue from the bottom in a controlled way (the cabin was already a complete loss) until the walls collapsed, removing the danger of further injury from such a collapse at a later time.   When danger from collapse was removed and the house was down, the department applied enough water to extinguish the fire completely.  Multiple units from Garden City Fire District and Laketown Fire District responded during the event.

Bob Stevens, Bear Lake Water Company, engaged a second pump on the hillside to assure adequate water flow to the hydrants which was entirely successful.

Bill and Barbara England of Bear Lake Pizza brought water and food to firefighters during the nearly five hour active fire fighting.

Andy Stokes, Tom Wahlberg, and Chief Mike Wahlberg took turns during the night staying on scene to make sure no further fire restarted, and in the morning equipment returned and again applied water to the debris.

In a strange coincidence the Garden City Fire Department had 4 times conducted training exercises on the house directly across the street so the firefighters were completely familiar with the terrain and water sources (hydrants and water on board the fire trucks).


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