A steamy situation

Thursday, February 3, 2011
Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette

Huge pillows of steam billow into a clear-blue sky as Red Willow Western firefighters extinguish a fire in a farm shed northeast of McCook, Nebraska, about a mile north of Strunk Memorial on County Road 388 late Wednesday afternoon. Fire Chief Bill Elliott said the fire started as owner Rick Ruggles was salvaging metal with a torch and a spark caught the floor of the shed on fire. Water poured on the hot fire quickly turned to steam in the 15-degree temperature, clouding visibility of the structure. "We had to carry the tin (siding) away to get to the wood frame that was burning," Elliott said. Nineteen firefighters responded to the fire, the first for the department's new pumper truck and a former U.S. Navy 50-foot ladder truck.

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