Coloma Fire Department Chief appreciates Pallet Fire response by departments and community

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I will apologize right now because I know I’m going to miss something or someone and be long winded, but I’ll give it a shot. I want to thank the businesses in our community and surrounding communities for providing so much this last week. It is incredible the amount of generosity that was shown to our department and the over 60 departments that were here helping extinguish this fire. The list includes: Jenna’s Red Hill Café, Uniquely Yours, Roughcut, The Cabin, Miller’s Hillside Pub, Flyte’s Fieldstones, Crystals Wood Lake, A&W, Subway, Coloma Mobil, Hoops Travel Plaza, The Bread Bar, Brakebush, StoneRidge, Casey’s of Wautoma, Kwik Trip of Wautoma, Ponderosa Pines, and Waushara County Food Pantry, which also provided a refrigerated truck. Many local residents were dropping water and food off throughout the fire. I would also like to thank the following local departments that were here for most or all of the 3 days we were on this call. They include, Plainfield, Wild Rose, Wautoma, Saxeville, Redgranite, Poy Sippi, Neshkoro and West Bloomfield. We have a great relationship with our County Departments and we appreciate all of their help. The surrounding County Departments included the Village of Westfield, Newton, Springfield in Marquette County, New Chester, Big Flats, and Adams in Adams County, Bancroft and Almond in Portage County. These departments are always there for us when we call and we’ll be there for them when its needed. The local government agencies involved included the Village of Coloma, Town of Coloma, Town of Richford, Waushara County Sheriffs Department, Waushara County EMS, Waushara County Emergency Management, Waushara County Highway Department. EMS had at times three ambulances standing by if needed. The Sheriffs deputies were helping with road closures and evacuations along with Emergency Management. The drone was flown to help locate hotspots. Highway Department was placing barricades to help with road closures. Our County is amazing at working together to get any task big or small accomplished. Wisconsin State Patrol and many surrounding State Game Wardens were instrumental with evacuation planning and road closures. The Wisconsin DNR had an obviously huge presence with fighting the fire, setting up an Incident Command Post and running the overall scene of the fire. It was great to see State, County, and Local Governments work together flawlessly, sometimes heated, but flawless. We utilized MABAS Wisconsin for strike teams of equipment that came from Fire Departments throughout the State on Monday and Tuesday. The help they provided was tremendous in giving our local resources a rest. The Operating Engineers Local 139 provided heavy equipment, water, and manpower and were instrumental in helping contain the fire. The intensity and size of this fire is something we have not seen in our department and we hope to never see again. The fire burned a total of 730 acres. People lost their homes and belongings, sheds and outbuildings were burned, but most importantly no lives were lost and there were no serious injuries. The fire was accidental but preventable. The DNR calls this a holdover fire which means the burn pile was from several days prior. With the wind and low humidity it restarted. It is important to call 911 right away no matter the size or situation so we can come control it quickly to help prevent a major situation. As far as the Pallet fire name, this comes from the first DNR Forester on scene naming the fire. There were no pallets being burned, the sawmill builds pallets. That is how the name came about. Finally, I want to thank the great people on the Coloma Fire Department, Station 1 in Coloma and Station 2 in Hancock. I’m proud of how well things went considering the situation. We all worked together, whether out on the scene or here at the station setting up the food and rehab area. I’m sure everyone would have been here for three straight days if not being forced to leave. We have a great team, my officers were right in the thick of it, firefighters willing to do whatever it took, the melted hose bed covers are proof of that. We were told we could leave and take a break, no one left. This is our area, our people and we weren’t going anywhere. Thanks isn’t enough and the dedication of our people is something to be proud of. The focus now should be to help and provide assistance to the people that lost property. Donation accounts have been set up to help accomplish this. We need to come together as a community and be kind to one another. We will overcome this and our tight knit, little community will be stronger than ever. Thank You, Nate Sigourney Fire Chief Coloma Fire Department
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