The fire at Frankie's Garage was certainly not my first fire. After 35 years, I have seen my share as the fire chief for the Town of Owls Head. The department cut its teeth practicing firefighting on the buildings at the airport. Training then burning them, but this one was my most painful.

Cecil Fogg, the owner, was a friend. I took my vehicles there, sent relatives and friends to him for work. Took fire department vehicles to Frankie's for service and repair I used to rent his rototiller to till my garden every year.

We knew that if there were ever a fire at the garage water was going to be a problem. Even on the best day there is a shortage of the kind of water supply needed for a large open building like that with tires, oils and other flammables in it. We had preplanned the fire several times. Would we run a line from the closest hydrant at North Shore Dr, would we tanker the water in. Nothing came up with enough water if the garage was really going.

That cold Sunday February afternoon when I got to the scene there was fire. It was in one bay, the last bay where the heater and tire storage, oil storage and such were located. Rockland's Chief Jordan arrived at the very same time. We both stuck our heads into the garage and yelled to make sure no one was inside, not knowing the other had done it. Chief Jordan asked where I wanted to make entry and I said the front entry door was the only choice and he agreed.

As Rockland Firefighters, Owls Head and South Thomaston firefighters arrived, Rockland took the interior attack and Owls Head Fire took the northwest water supply being better at supplying water than Rockland. South Thomaston took up a southeast water supply and laid a 2 ½ inch hose to start fighting the fire. Six or seven Rockland firefighters laid a couple 1 ¾ attack lines and entered the building from the small entry door, threaded their way through the equipment and vehicles, dragging hoses trying to find the seat of the fire.

They made a valiant effort, knowing that probably the only chance to save the building was to find it and extinguish the fire from the inside. Steel doors, few windows and a steel roof would make fighting the fire from the outside difficult. Rockland firefighters are the highest quality around in my mind followed by a number of others. South Thomaston is also high up there. Chief Bryan Calderwood and his crew have made their department stand out in the county. South Thomaston started pouring water on from the outside trying to keep their stream away from Rockland's firefighters inside so as not to injure or kill them.

The fire continued to grow as Rockland firefighters tried to extinguish the fire inside the building. Chief Jordan seeing the fire was growing ordered his personnel out.

"We don't risk lives for wood and bricks," the saying goes.

I asked Chief Jordan how they made out. All he could say was, "we can't save them all Chief."

My heart sunk. I know he felt as badly as I did. We all wanted to be able to save this business, me especially. My friends business and livelihood. As Chief Jordan was walking away I asked "Can we at least get those doors cut down so we can save some of the equipment maybe?" He said "absolutely."

I saw the rotary saw come out and then we saw an explosion inside the building, then I am assuming it was decided it was too dangerous for a firefighter to get close enough to the building to cut down the steel overhead doors. I know I would have made that call if my firefighters were inside. By this time, maybe 45 minutes into the attack, the fire had progressed to a point that I knew the building was not going to be repairable and would have to come down. An older building gets to that point really quickly when very high temperatures, water and smoke damage them. It cost more to rebuild than tear down and start new. Rehabbing fire damage is not cheap. I wished that there were a way to pull some of the equipment from the building, but once that call to get out is made it is never changed. Only a life in danger would allow a firefighter back inside.

Lobbing water onto the roof would be fruitless with a steel covering, it would just wasting water. The crews from Rockland and South Thomaston poured water into the windows of the overhead doors until the doors burned through while Owls Head was supplying water. In the meantime, we were having problems with our water supply. I had sent people to the hydrant at the Grange Hall to fill tankers but the water pressure was almost nil and it was taking too long to fill them. The decision was made to switch to the Vocational School hydrant in Rockland at the town line. South Thomaston in the meantime sent their second pumper to Great Marsh Lane in Owls Head looking for another water supply. The water was too shallow to use there at either side of the pond. The crew went to Buttermilk Lane and used their 6 X 6 engine to ram its way throught two to four feet of snow to the get to the pond across from the Sutella Farm. They established another water supply there and with their and St. George's tanker ran a tanker supply from the southeast side.

I had briefly thought about using AFFF foam but I didn't know what effect it might have on the contents of the building. Foam is basically soap. It breaks the surface tension between water/oil. It could also allow the polluted water and chemicals to flow into the ground under the building which was unfrozen. Garage owners in the north and south end of Rockland have seen huge bills to clean up pollution from years of use, leaks and spills got into the ground. One years after he sold the garage. I didn't want that to happen here. Insurance is prohibitively expensive for pollution coverage so no one has it so I knew the Foggs didn't. I didn't want to see them lose their money to rebuild, their savings and maybe their home to pay for the remediation of the pollution of ground water in the area. Pollution laws are brutal. If your property causes the pollution you pay. Water with antifreeze, unburned hydrocarbons, remnants from plastics that burned even wood can get into ground water and ruin it forever.

At this point we were trying to save any portion of the garage that was still standing. There is no sense putting water on what is already destroyed. Trying to save the machine shop and office then the office. Crews stayed back from the fire after a large explosion sent flames high into the sky setting trees on fire on the southeast side and nearly knocking down firefighters out on the road. It was all lost. I felt so badly for the Foggs. Trying to burn more of the oil still on the ground in the ruins I left two fires burning all night. I went over four times to check on them during the night. The oil tank behind the office had its valve burn off so letting the oil burn was easier than trying to get the tank out of the ruins to plug it. The other fire in the third bay was tires burning the oil. By the next morning the fuel oil had burned off and only a small fire remained in the third bay. There was still quite a bit of waste oil around but not enough to require a major cleanup.

Could we have done stuff differently? Monday morning quarterbacking is easy. I'm sure there were things we could have done differently. Would it have resulted in a standing viable garage? I don't think so. As I said it doesn't take long before an old building gets to the point that it is cheaper to tear down and start again than to rebuild. Was there another water supply somewhere around there? I sure wish I knew it then. But with nearly three feet of snow and knowing you have to get a pumper truck within 15 feet of a pond 'side too' makes getting to one a real challenge.

Later I found out that the reason there was no water pressure at the Grange hydrant was because the large water company tank on Old County Road in Rockland had been nearly emptied by leaks around the service area caused by the previous weeks of severe cold.

When Cecil was cleaning up the site preparing for a new building I went over and talked to him. D. L. Overlock, Inc., was cleaning up the metal putting it into a container being sent to recycling. I spied a piece of 6 X 6 square steel tubing in the ruins and asked if I could buy it. He sold it to me. I wanted to build a grinder stand or other equipment stand out of it for him for his new garage. Something from his old garage to his new garage.

Chiefs in the north of the county have been working on a more substantial kind of tanker shuttle. Having their way proving it worked in May of this year. This system might have saved more of the building. Not to rebuild, but allowing some of the valuable equipment to be salvaged. Another thing we have vowed is to train more together. Owls Head has called for assistance maybe 12 times in my tenure as chief. We rarely train together yet we are expected to do our very best when tragedy strikes. Don't get me wrong we all work well but training together gives you a chance to know each other on a more personal level. Firefighting is a brotherhood (or sisterhood). Firefighters need to watch each others back. Working like a well oiled machine, all for one and one for all.

Frank Ross is chief of the Owls Head Fire Department.