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Sunday’s heat didn’t stop dozens of Fresno City firefighters from battling a three-alarm fire in Downtown Fresno.
Chief Kerri Donis said they received a call of a commercial fire around 9am inside a restaurant supply business near Van Ness Avenue and Los Angeles street. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. At the same time the fire was burning, a second fire down the street broke out. Donis said, "At the same time just shortly after that, we had a second alarm fire occurred just south of here at Cedar and Monterey."
Fresno Fire public information officer Pete Martinez said the building was used for storage by it’s owners, therefore no one was inside when the blaze tore down the roof.
The firefighters focused on staying hydrated and as cool as possible on the very hot day.
Captain Brian Price, "Obviously our biggest priority is extinguishing the fire and safety of our personnel, so we’re battling that blaze. But one of the other things we’re battling is fatigue and rehab."
Price said on hot days like Sunday, it is mandatory for all of the firefighters to hydrate the night before to physically prepare for a strenuous work environment.
"Being in this gear, we’ve got about 30 to 45 pounds of gear that we wear on ourselves, in addition to our packs and our bottles. Just wearing that gear on a nice cool day is enough to get you overheated. On a day like this when it’s 106, we have to take that into account to keep our personnel safe," said Price.
Donis said there were a lot more crews on scene at Van Ness and Los Angeles than there normally would be for a fire of that size. Each firefighter works for about 15 to 20 minutes, said Price, and then they rest for half an hour before starting the cycle again.
The Chief said, "We have asked the CERT team to come out and set up a rehab for us along with American Ambulance. We have food coming in to support the firefighters, we have a lot of heavy fluids, waters, Gatorades flowing."
CERT stands for the Community Emergency Response Team. Price said CERT is a group of volunteers that come out to the scene to make sure firefighters get shade, food, and water to get through the day.
Because of those precautions, no firefighters suffered heat exhaustion or heat stroke, even though temps continued to climb.
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