Smithfield honors workers for saving home and property

by Herald Journal

SMITHFIELD -- When Kyle Wood told his young son that he got to be a firefighter for a day, his son was impressed -- after all, what boy doesn't think about becoming a firefighter?

Wood is not a firefighter, though; he's an estimator at Jack B. Parson Companies Ready Mix Concrete in Smithfield. And Wood's co-workers, Ryan Burnett, Cameron Moser and Ben Wood, aren't firefighters, either.

The four men say what they did on Aug. 15 was no big deal, and that they were just doing what needed to be done. All they wanted was to see a house saved from a wildfire. A handshake and a thank you would have been plenty.

However, last Tuesday night the Smithfield City Council, the fire department and the police department honored the four men who risked their own lives to help save a house being threatened by a lightning-sparked fire.

Heroes?

"I'd say," said Cache County Fire Chief Kelly Pitcher. The four men wouldn't say that, though.

"We were just helping out," Moser said.

Wood, along with Ben Wood and Burnett, was working in the gravel yard behind Parson's that day. It was a windy, blustery, hot afternoon. At about 4 p.m., toward the end of the day and the work week, lightning struck about 100 yards from Wood. "I saw it out of my rearview mirror," Moser recounted.

"It scared the crap out of us," Wood added.

Ben Wood saw the strike and radioed the dispatcher at the office to call for fire crews.

The strike started what they thought to be a small smolder, nothing too serious. However, within a few moments the wind had begun to pick up and flames were shooting from the long, dry summer grass.

They noticed that the flames were spreading rapidly toward Terry Johnson's house, which sits just southeast of the pits. Reacting to the situation, the men took two water trucks in the yard and started spraying down the nearby fields between the flames and the house.

The grass was so dry and the wind so strong that by the time fire crews could respond, the flames were already 20 feet high.

Without the quick thinking, Pitcher believes that part of the house would have been on fire before fire crews arrived.

"It could have gotten to the garage and started it on fire, and the garage is attached to the house," Pitcher said. "The only thing that could have saved it was those water trucks."

The men remember how much smoke billowed from the fire, which left part of a hillside black. They remember feeling the wall of heat pummel them from the field.

At one point, Burnett was operating a hose behind the water truck Moser was driving.

"I just lost sight of him. I couldn't see from the front to the back of the truck because of the smoke," Moser said. "It wasn't that bad until the end. I swear those flames were more than 20 feet."

Richard Mauchley, the office manager, watched the whole thing unfold. He could see that the flames were moving dangerously close to his co-workers. Winds in the valley were gusting at 50-60 mph.

"I could see how fast it was coming and I called on the cell phone to get out of there. I called Cameron, but he must have dropped the phone along the way," Mauchley said. The smoke was burning Wood's eyes so badly that he ran into the Johnson's barn, but even the barn was too smoky for safety.

The four men and fire crews had to back off of the fire at one point because of the high winds and smoke. Wood joked that he was glad they were able to move all the equipment away from the fire safely.

"What I was thinking at the time was how I was going to explain to Ogden that we had lost a water truck," Wood joked.

Pitcher reported that firefighters lost 150 feet of hose because they had to retreat from the fire so quickly. However, both firefighters and volunteers were safe. The water trucks made it out of the flames and smoke safely, too.

The fire was put out thanks to fire crews and rains that soon followed. The nearby home was also saved from damage.

Now that the smoke has settled, Moser and Wood still say they would take that chance again.

"I would do it it differently, but I would do it again," Wood said.
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