Colo. Training LODDs Recalled on 30th Anniversary

Jan. 26, 1982, started out like any other day, but by the time it was over, the unthinkable had happened.

A little after 10 a.m., four Boulder firefighters -- including William J. Duran and Scott L. Smith -- entered an old chicken coop near 15th Street and Hawthorn Avenue for what was supposed to be a routine training exercise. Two other crews already had completed the exercise safely.

Tires that had been set on fire to create smoke for the training exercise ignited highly flammable fiberboard ceiling tiles. Within seconds, the fire was raging out of control.

Duran, a 30-year-old engineer and father of three, and Smith, a 21-year-old who had joined the department just three months earlier, burned to death.

Two other firefighters -- Cyrus Pinkerton, who was supervising the training exercise, and Daniel Cutler -- managed to escape but suffered serious burns.

An independent investigator later found that several mistakes were made in planning the training exercise. Those included not removing the flammable tiles -- no one recognized them as a hazard even though they were banned in public buildings -- and not having a backup crew on scene that was prepared to fight the fire. A small hose in the building was not adequate for the job.

The tragedy left deep wounds in two families and the Boulder Fire Department, and it led to national changes in standards for training exercises.

On Thursday, friends, family members and firefighters will gather at Station 3 to remember the two men and the fire that claimed their lives on the 30th anniversary. The city's flags will fly at half-staff.

Battalion Chief Gilbert Espinoza, who was on duty that day and counted Duran among his best friends, said the handful of firefighters still with the department who were serving that day consider it a duty and an honor to pass on the story to younger firefighters.

"You pass on the stories from your family by word of mouth," he said. "That's what it's like. My goal is for the new firefighters to see the family and learn the story so that they understand -- every Jan. 26 -- that firefighters from Boulder changed the national standard. We want to put a face to the names. Our goal is to make sure the families and their sacrifices are not forgotten."

Espinoza's crew was at its station, waiting its turn to go to training, when the firefighters heard the emergency call and the frantic radio traffic. Until that moment, the firefighters had viewed it as "just training."

"It started out a day like any other day, a training like any other training," Espinoza said. "Our lives changed that day."

In the early 1980s, live-fire training exercises in abandoned buildings were common, said Larry Donner, now Boulder's fire chief and the training chief in Fort Collins at the time of the accident.

"At the time of the training exercise, a lot of fire departments, probably the majority of them, were conducting live-fire training the same way Boulder did," Donner said.

They would acquire old buildings that were going to be torn down and use them for training exercises that involved little planning or forethought. Firefighters often were sent in without knowing the interior layout of the building. Only cursory attention was paid to building materials.

"There was an assumption with training that because it was training, it was inherently safer," Donner said. "It was just one of those things where people didn't look at it with the same intensity as an emergency situation. There was a little bit of complacency."

Today, live-fire exercises are only done at the Fire Training Center near the Boulder Reservoir. Abandoned buildings are used to practice cutting ventilation holes or doing forced entry, but not set on fire.

"It helps people keep their skills up in a controlled environment where we can keep our firefighters safe," Donner said.

No Boulder firefighters have died in the line of duty since Duran and Smith lost their lives.

Donner said equipment is much better, but firefighters also have much more "situational awareness" and make safety a top priority. Fires are approached in a more systematic way, Donner said.

Juanita Razo, of Thornton, one of Duran's five siblings, said she's grateful that the city and its firefighters haven't forgotten her little brother and that his death has saved other lives through improved training standards.

"There's a sense of sadness and loss and yet mixed with pride that he was our brother," she said. "We like to think of the positive aspects that came out of it, that the training practices were improved nationwide. The loss was horrendous, but at least it wasn't in vain."

It's hard to believe 30 years have passed, she said.

"He would have been 60 this year," Razo said. "That's hard to fathom because he's forever young to us. He was a good guy, and we miss him."

Espinoza said Duran was a calm, patient, lighthearted man, confident and sure in his actions, "the kind of person you think of when you think of a firefighter." He considered him like a brother, as he does every firefighter. The loss has stayed with him and other firefighters the same way his service in Vietnam did.

"It's a hurt that you never get over. It's always there," he said. "You come to work and you think about it, and you go home and you're grateful."

Smith's father, Duaine "Whitey" Smith, lives in north Boulder. He remembers his son as a happy boy who did well in school, a good athlete who "never gave us a moment's trouble."

If a neighbor hadn't encouraged him to join the fire department, he expects Scott Smith would have followed him into painting. Scott Smith was working on a painting job when he got the call that he had been hired in Boulder. He had scored second out of 400 applicants on his entrance exam.

Scott Smith was the youngest of Duaine and Lavona Smith's three children. According to a personal remembrance written by his older brother, Phil Smith, Scott Smith suffered a series of setbacks -- a broken engagement, lost jobs, a car accident -- but life seemed to be turning around for him right before his death. He loved his job as a firefighter, and he had a great new girlfriend.

"He beat everything life had to throw at him, right up until this," Phil Smith wrote.

When talk turns to the fire itself, Duaine Smith looks away and his mouth gets tight.

"I was so stunned, I didn't have any feelings," he said of the day of the fire. "I didn't know what to do."

Those losses should never be forgotten, Donner said.

"When we do the commemoration, it's to remind people that what we do is dangerous and we need to be as careful as we can," he said. "Our job is to serve the community, but it's also very important that at the end of the shift, everybody goes home."

Contact Camera Staff Writer Erica Meltzer at 303-473-1355 or [email protected].

If you go

A remembrance ceremony for William J. Duran and Scott L. Smith, Boulder firefighters killed in a training fire 30 years ago Thursday, will take place at 10 a.m. at Fire Station 3, 1585 30th St., Boulder.

The commemoration is open to the public. Seating will begin at 9 a.m.