PLYMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - Plymouth firefighters worked quickly to extinguish a fire in their own station after a fire truck started to go up in flames on New Year’s Eve.
“It was a good shock, you know,” said firefighter Trevor Nadile. “The last thing you expect as a firefighter is having your own fire truck catch on fire in the fire station.”
The crew at the Manomet fire station had just returned a little before midnight when the station bells started going off.
Firefighters quickly discovered that a battery had short-circuited inside the fire engine, filling the garage with heavy smoke.
“You could kind of start seeing flames coming out,” Nadile said.
To prevent the flames from spreading, Nadile said he opened the garage door and jumped inside the burning truck, holding his breath due to all the smoke.
“I didn’t even know if it was going to start, so I gave it shot, and it started right away,” he said.
Nadile drove the fiery truck outside, followed by two other firefighters.
Using another fire truck to battle the blaze would take longer, so they used an extinguisher and a garden hose and put out the flames in minutes.
“There’s no training for what happens when your fire truck catches on fire in a fire station,” Plymouth Fire Chief Ed Bradley said. “So you just improvise, but you’ve got the basic knowledge.”
Bradley is proud of his firefighters. He says the quick actions of Nadile and the other firemen saved millions of dollars worth of equipment.
“They always have a backup plan in place to make sure everyone is safe, and in this case, they did that exactly by the book,” he said.
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