Jan. 13--A local firefighter who sustained an injury while fighting a Crab Orchard fire Tuesday night described the explosion that downed several fellow firefighters as life-threatening.
Jenna Bishop, 22, of Sophia City Fire Department, said the outpouring of fellowship and support following the incident proves the "brotherhood" that exists among first responders.
At 6:07 p.m., firefighters from Sophia Area, Sophia City, Rhodell, Lester and Coal City fire departments were called to respond to a house fire on Hatfield Road in Crab Orchard.
Temperatures were at record lows with a subzero wind chill factor when firefighters left their homes.
Roads weren't in the best condition: Some of the back roads were icy or snow-covered.
Bishop and her crew left their station believing they were going to fight a typical residential fire -- something they could easily handle.
"We thought it was going to be just a normal, routine fire," she explained.
She and her crew traveled along Robert C. Byrd Drive en route to the fire.
At the MacArthur Walmart entrance, she said, she got a hint that something was awry.
"I saw heavy, black smoke and advised everybody on the radio we had heavy, black smoke," recalled Bishop.
As firefighters arrived at Hatfield Road, they saw that the hill was steep and ice-covered.
Sophia City Fire Department Chief Jeff Pittman had described it as "a solid sheet of ice."
Planning to douse the flames so they could enter the house, Bishop and her fellow SCFD firefighters approached the scene.
She could see her colleagues, around 10 or 15 of them, in the yard of the home.
She noted that the home was fully engulfed in flames, and firefighters were feverishly attacking the fire with water hoses so they could enter.
Water from their trucks and hoses was streaming down Hatfield Road, adding to the treacherously icy conditions.
One fire truck had skidded dangerously, officials later reported, ending in a ditch.
As she and SCFD firefighters tried to hook up their pumps, the truck -- which is routinely checked prior to leaving the station -- unexpectedly malfunctioned.
"When we got to the scene, it wouldn't pump," she said.
With the flames still so high, firefighters were unable to enter the home and attack the fire from inside -- the plan they'd had prior to the pump malfunction.
Bishop turned her attention to another course of action.
"I was walking up, going to see where they needed me, putting my gloves on."
Suddenly, Bishop said, the house exploded.
Six of her fellow firefighters were struck by the full force, with five of them sustaining injuries.
She called the moment "heart-stopping" and said she ran toward them, praying they were alive.
"It was just this huge explosion," she recalled. "It engulfed over their heads, threw them back, threw their helmets off."
A few firefighters had to dive over the front fence of the property to escape the suddenly amplified flames, she added.
"Everybody just scattered," she said. "My first thought was, 'Come on, guys, get up, please get up.'
"I ran toward them, and I got one of the other female firefighters who had a pack on. It had knocked her helmet off," Bishop recalled. "I helped her over to the truck, and we moved the truck away because we thought it was a gas line explosion.
"We moved everybody over till we got the gas shut off," she said. "There was nothing we could do, putting our guys in that danger, knowing it could explode again. We'd had no idea it was going to explode."
On Wednesday, local fire officials and Junior Ewing, a resident of the home, reported that an oxygen tank on the premises had caused the explosion.
Firefighters ended the call close to midnight, according to Raleigh County Emergency Operations Center dispatchers.
Bishop, who had slipped on the ice during the fracas, was treated at a local hospital for an injured elbow.
Fellow firefighters who had been caught in the explosion sustained injuries including a concussion and sprains and other injuries to limbs.
"It's not every day you have an explosion like that, and people live," said Bishop.
Later, she thanked "a higher power" for the truck malfunction.
"Had the truck worked, our firemen would've been inside the house when it exploded," she said. "We'd be mourning losses. But by His grace and mercy, we are all living and able to make the next call."
As first responders crowded the hospital Wednesday night, Bishop said, she experienced what it meant to be a firefighter among firefighters.
"People from departments that weren't even there were coming to the hospital to check on us," said Bishop. "They didn't have to do that, but they know we do the same things they do.
"They came and checked on us," she said. "It makes you feel a lot better. The brotherhood was outstanding."
Those who couldn't make it to the hospital offered prayers, texts and telephone calls, she said.
One injured firefighter was a personal acquaintance of Bishop.
"One of the people that got hurt is Zack Honaker, chief of Coal City Fire Department," reported Bishop. "I've gone to school with him and known him for years. He just has a passion for it, like everybody else."
For the rest of the night, she said, she thought about the explosion and the way firefighters had come together.
"I couldn't sleep (Wednesday) morning and saw a song for firefighters called 'Blood Brothers,'" she said. "That song, by Luke Bryan, hits the nail on the head."
Bishop quoted the song, "Blood brothers, closer than the next of kin, thick as thieves and the best of friends, take a bullet for each other, brothers, a life that don't come cheap, you fight, you lie, you bleed, and you lean on one another, blood brothers."
She said the lyrics perfectly describe the lesson she encountered Tuesday night about being a firefighter.
"We are blood brothers and sisters," she said. "We fight sometimes, and we don't always get along, but we're always going to be brothers and sisters and always going to help each other. We're thick as thieves, and we stick together, no matter what.
"(The explosion) is going to mess with everybody, especially the people that were directly involved with it, but we do this for a reason, because we want to help people," she said. "We do this out of our hearts."
She sent the song out on her Facebook page early Wednesday, tagging fellow firefighters.
Bishop thanked the community for passing a recent fire levy.
"I want to thank everybody that voted for the levy," she said. "Without the levy, we wouldn't have had the equipment to be able to fight fires like we have and be able to protect our citizens. That really played a factor in us being able to continue to go out and fight fires."
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Copyright 2014 - The Register-Herald, Beckley, W.Va.
