June 23--A home north of Windsor was declared a "total loss" after firefighters were unable to use two fire hydrants that malfunctioned, preventing crews from drawing water to extinguish the blaze Thursday night.
Ellen Ward, who rents the basement of the house owned by Marie Alkire at 37607 Lee Lake Ave. in the Northwest Estate subdivision off Weld County Road 76, said she couldn't believe what she was seeing when firefighters from Windsor Severance Fire Rescue couldn't get water to fight the fully involved fire.
"They weren't working," a frustrated Ward said of the hydrants. "I bet my truck would have been saved. By the time they got there, it wasn't at the truck yet, and half the house would have been saved if they had worked. There was no water. We sat over there and watched them with dead hoses for about a half an hour while this place burned."
Ward said it was an extremely scary experience.
"I watched my truck explode in front of me. This was so frustrating because it did not have to be this bad," Ward said. "I've never been close to a fire like this before. This was horrible. Marie had a beautiful harp in the (front) room and we were hoping it wouldn't get there, and it took her harp. It was the most beautiful harp I've ever seen. I moved here two months ago. My stuff is still in boxes down there."
Alkire, Ward and her two cats were able to escape the home safely. Two vehicles, one in the garage and Ward's 2000 Ford Ranger pickup truck in the driveway, exploded and were destroyed. WSFR Battalion Chief Darren Jaques said Alkire sustained some burns and blisters on her arm, but she refused medical attention.
"We were able to salvage and save almost everything in the basement, but there is some water damage in there. The basement's pretty well intact, but (the house) is going to be a total loss," Jaques said.
WSFR fire marshal Sandra Friedrichsen said the cause of the fire is still under investigation, but she thinks it was most likely caused by an electrical malfunction.
"As of right now, it's electrical, until more investigating gets done," said Friedrichsen, who said it's still too early to give a damage estimate.
Crews were on the scene within 7 minutes of the initial call around 10:15 p.m., Fire Chief Herb Brady said. But when they went to connect to their five-inch hose to the fire hydrants near the home, they could not get the "steamer caps" off.
When they went to another hydrant, they were faced with the same situation. Crews were forced to use water from another nearby hydrant, but were only able to use smaller 2.5-inch hoses, which are much less effective in fighting fully involved structures, Brady said.
Ward said two days before the fire, smoke alarms in the home had gone off for no reason and she thought it was happening again. This time, the smoke alarms kept blaring.
"I went outside and the owner of the house was screaming to get the cats out," Ward said.
The fire was threatening nearby homes and a shed, but crews were able to prevent it from spreading with water from three water tanker trucks.
"All these people are talking to us saying, 'This is so dangerous for this neighborhood. Something has to change,' " Ward said. "You can't have this happening because somebody could have died in this fire. I was a couple of minutes away from going to bed, and I would have ignored the smoke alarm because it went off two days ago and didn't cause a problem."
Brady said the department's legal counsel is looking into the incident and that the North Weld County Water District is supposed to maintain the hydrants.
A similar incident happened on May 27, 2012, when a fire hydrant in the Soaring Eagle Ranch subdivision was shut off at the street valve but was never marked as "out-of-service." That home, owned by Loren and Jody Hard, ended up being destroyed, but officials at the time said a working hydrant likely wouldn't have mattered because of the high winds.
Regardless, Brady was still admittedly frustrated about Thursday's fire and said he has never heard of two incidents like this before.
"They assured us by the end of August they would have every hydrant within our fire protection district tested," Brady said. "It makes a dangerous situation a lot more dangerous."
The entire 110-mile fire district is served by four water authorities including, the town of Windsor, Little Thompson and Fort Collins-Loveland districts.
Don Posselt, district manager of North Weld County Water, said the hydrant was last inspected on July 13, 2012, and was found to have been in "good working condition."
"This was a matter of a cap that was put on there snuggly -- the cap was snugged on there," he said, adding that it didn't take water crews more than 30 seconds to loosen the cap Friday morning. "We have a program for checking them, and within the last year it was tested."
Witnesses said they observed a worker hitting the cap with a sledgehammer Friday morning to loosen it.
Posselt said the district maintains 743 hydrants on a three-year rolling basis.
Three tanker trucks were completely empty by the end of the incident, Brady said. Poudre Fire Authority provided mutual aid on the fire. In total, five engines, three command cars and two ambulances were on the scene.
Theresa Ternes, a neighbor who lives across the street, said the fire hydrants are a concern in the neighborhood.
"It's not a good thing. If we have hydrants, we want them to work," Ternes said. "We're out in the country anyway and we know the response time is slower."
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