Fire Baby

The day of Emily's birth will be remembered by many as it was also the day of one of the largest fires in Boise's history, the Oregon Trail fire. Ten homes were destroyed and nine others damaged. One woman lost her life.

As a Boise Firefighter, Kurt received a mandatory call back, as all personnel were called in to help. He was sitting on the extra bed in my hospital room when his phone rang. All he had time to ask was "is this mandatory?" before the person on the other end said yes and hung up. It was about 9:30pm by then, I was being well looked after in the hospital, so Kurt followed orders and (with my blessing) headed for Boise and this huge fire.

The fire was burning just behind his station (22) so it didn't take long for him to grab his things and get to where all the guys were being staged.

The fire began due to a downed power line ~ forty mile an hour winds spread the fire faster than anyone could catch it before it got to homes. As it was, no one even called 911 to report the fire: some firefighters not too far away saw the smoke and decided to head toward it to check it out.


Homes were engulfed before there was anything that could be done for them. I've heard that an entire house was in flames in three minutes. This wasn't the kind of fire that started in one part of the house and spread; because of the heat level, it completely took the house all at once. The woman who died simply didn't have time to get out of her house before it was too late.


Kurt got to the staging area about 10:30pm. There he was told to plan to be out all night. They would use the fresh guys and rotate them in with those that had been working.

So Kurt waited. As it turns out, the amazing crews working got things under control faster than expected. About 2:30am Kurt and all the guys waiting were told they could go home.

So here's to the new daddy who was willing to go and fight that scary fire. And every fire.

There have been lots of stories on the fire and the people who lost their homes.
Special memorials were held for the woman who died.
The community rallied to provide needed items to home owners.
Quietly the firefighters have gone back to their day's work.