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Lightning starts fire to RTC tower
Originally published 09:41 p.m., June 16, 2009
Updated 10:08 p.m., June 16, 2009
A tower at the Regional Treatment Center (RTC) was damaged Tuesday evening when lightning struck the top of the Kirkbride building.
Fergus Falls firefighters responded to the RTC around 6:45 p.m. after a passerby reported seeing flames and smoke coming from the campus, said Fire Chief Mark Hovland. The fire affected the very top of the Kirkbride tower, which sits at the main entrance to the facility and reaches approximately 130 feet.
Firefighters initially fought the blaze using a hose from one of the ladder trucks, said Tom Arneson, assistant fire chief. Once they were able to send water through the top of the tower, firefighters stopped working from the outside and entered the building. After snaking a hose up four floors, plus a series of spiral staircases, firefighters were able to spray water from a wooden structure within the tower. The top four to six feet of that structure will need to be replaced, Hovland said, as will roof tiles that fell from the building during the incident.
One firefighter was injured when a tile fell on his shoulder as he worked inside the building. He was transported to Lake Region Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, Hovland said.
Once firefighters reached the tower, it took them only minutes to extinguish the blaze, Arneson said. But the difficulty of navigating the building with an estimated 1,000 feet of hose meant the effort took about 45 minutes total.
“The guys are tuckered,” Hovland said. “They did a lot of hiking and climbing.”
It was also a messy job, with firefighters emerging from the tower covered in pigeon feces.
Authorities put up a fence around the front of the Kirkbride in case any tiles fell from the building. Firefighters intended to keep the hose in the building overnight in case a fire rekindled. They planned to remove it Wednesday.
The building was scheduled to be open to city staff working at the site Wednesday.
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