By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
Monday was a holiday for many Americans, honoring the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. For a group City of Decatur employees, however, Monday brought hard work and long hours in bitter cold temperatures.
While some were repairing a main break in the same area as the day before, Decatur firefighters were in Bluffton helping battle a residential fire.
Both efforts were carried out in single-digit temperatures with wind chills below the zero mark.
Decatur firefighters and the department’s aerial ladder truck were dispatched to Bluffton at 1:40 p.m. to assist in battling a three-story house fire.
No one was injured in the blaze in the 300 block of West Central Ave. as Bluffton firefighters found the home’s occupants out of the structure when they arrived around 1:30 p.m.
The fire was reported under control by 5:30, but some crews remained on the scene until 8:30.
A total of 10 Decatur firefighters were heavily involved in the firefight as the city’s aerial ladder truck (see photo) was once again needed due to Bluffton’s aerial being out of commission. The Decatur aerial was used last July when a downtown Bluffton structure was destroyed by fire.
The Decatur crew was on the scene until around 7:10 Monday night.
Fire departments from Decatur, Monroe, Ossian, Liberty Center, and the 122nd Fighter Wing in For Wayne sent crews to assist in the firefight.
Preble’s fire department covered the northern area of the Bluffton Fire Territory during the battle, during which three other fire calls came into the Bluffton station.
The Salvation Army provided coffee and snacks and Bluffton’s street department helped out by getting salt on the street to prevent as much freezing as possible. Wells County EMS remained on the scene but no injuries were reported.
2ND BREAK: In Decatur, meanwhile, city workers were forced to return to the area of Sunday’s main repair to do it all over again, this time just south of the previous day, which was on Adams St., west of 12th St.
“It was definitely cold again,” Operations Manager Jeremy Gilbert after the crew of eight had made repairs.
Monday’s repair job took much longer – some nine hours, from 9 a.m. to around 6 p.m. Sunday’s work required a little over four hours.
“The cold weather is to blame (for the main breaks),” Gilbert explained. “With no snow on the ground, there is no insulation and all the rain and cold temperatures are going into the ground.”
(Photos courtesy of the Bluffton Fire Department.)