June 19--Dundee Fire Chief Danny Pogue is certain the volunteer fire department will return from the weekend fire that destroyed the department's equipment and heavily damaged the station.
But Pogue said he was unsure how long rebuilding the department would take.
"It's going to take time," Pogue said Tuesday. "Before (we) do anything, (the insurance companies are) going to have to finish their investigation on the cause."
He said there are three insurance adjusters involved in the investigation -- one for the fire station, one for the department's two trucks and a third for the firefighting equipment.
Once a cause of the fire is determined, restoring the department "will move along at a rapid pace," Pogue said.
The Saturday night fire appears to have started in one of the department's two firefighting vehicles, he said.
"These trucks all have equipment aboard that requires power 24/7," Pogue said. "Something in the system in the truck, or one of the components, failed."
Both trucks were damaged beyond future use, as were all of the department's firefighting gear, Pogue said. Department firefighters had communications equipment with them at home, but the backup equipment was heavily damaged.
The building is a loss, Pogue said.
"There's no rebuilding or fixing this building," he said. "It's structurally not stable -- big wind storms come up, and it could collapse."
The Dundee department already had mutual aid agreements with several other Ohio County fire departments. Pogue said when a fire call is received from Dundee, the fire departments in either Hartford, Fordsville or Rosine will respond. In the past, one of those departments would have been called out to respond to a fire along with the Dundee department, Pogue said.
"We did make sure the community and everyone in the area is still protected," he said.
Pogue said "it will be a while" before the investigations into the cause of the fire are resolved and a new station is built.
"The trucks were pretty easy," Pogue said. The insurance adjuster "went ahead and totaled both of those trucks."
But even if the trucks were replaced immediately, the department has no place to stage and no equipment, he said. Some administrative equipment might be salvageable from the building, but all of the firefighting equipment is ruined, Pogue said.
The adjusters are working to determine the cause, Pogue said.
"Every day, it's one step in that direction" to rebuilding the station, Pogue said.
James Mayse, 691-7303, [email protected]
Copyright 2013 - Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.
