Yankee Springs/Wayland Fire Dept. personnel Friday were summoned to what was reported as a fully involved garage fire in Yankee Springs Township.
Through a cooperative effort of neighboring firefighters such as Orangeville, the incident was handled without any injuries.
Barry County Central Dispatch paged out Mutual Aid Partners Hastings Fire Department and Thornapple Township Fire Department for their water tenders and Automatic Mutual Aid Partners from Orangeville Township Fire Department were dispatched as well.
Firefighters learned that a garage was unattached and with the winds being strong, from a westerly direction they were concerned about possible exposure fires.
“We could see a large black column of smoke in the nice blue sky and getting closer to the scene there was heavy fire showing,” a Yankee Springs spokesman said. “Scene arrival showed a large garage heavily charged with fire, heavy black smoke billowing into the sky and the shingles on the home across the street were smoking.
“Command was immediately put into place. Due to the narrow roadway dispatch was contacted to relay to the incoming water tenders that we would be nursing with them instead of using the dump tank. Staging for replacement of personnel was in put in place.”
The spokesman added that extinguishment immediate began on the structure with the deck mounted deluge gun and one 2-1/2” hand line. More hand lines were placed into service once more firefighting personnel arrived.
Consumers Energy was contacted because one of its power poles had caught on fire. The fire was extinguished, equipment picked up, put away and command terminated. Mutual Aid Partners were released to return to their fire districts.
The spokesman said, “We want to give our deepest thank you’s’ to Wayland Area EMS for their standing by at the incident, Consumers Energy both Gas & Electric, Hastings, Orangeville, and Thornapple Township Fire Departments, our own personnel and Barry County Central Dispatch for handling all of our radio traffic and making contacts for us.”
