News : VFD aerial ladder truck performed well in huge Van Horne fire

Vinton's aerial truck did all firefighters hoped it would during the Oct. 3 fire in Van Horne.

1000 gallons per minute: Aerial ladder truck helped spare downtown Van Horne.

The scene on October 3, 2012, in Van Horne, brought back many memories of a Vinton scene on Sept. 9, 2005.

A large building on fire in a downtown business area. A two-story brick building on a corner to the south of the building that burned while a flag waved above the smoke.

An aerial ladder truck from another city covering the fire with 1,000 gallons of water per minute.

Anxious business owners worried about the fire spreading to adjoining buildings.

Firefighters from several area communities, including Vinton, were working together to save what they could.

A city that lost one of its largest buildings and favorite gathering places, but saw the surrounding area saved.

Vinton residents saw the importance of having an aerial ladder truck for a huge downtown fire when the American Legion building burned to the ground seven years ago. The Hiawatha Fire Department sent its aerial ladder truck to Vinton to help save the businesses on the west side of the 400 block of First Avenue.

A few years later, the Vinton Fire Department received an offer to buy an aerial ladder truck for around $30,000 -- about a fourth of its market value. That truck arrived in Vinton in 2009, and the VFD members began preparing a place to store that truck and also began learning how to use its 100-foot ladder and its more than 1,000 gallon-per-minute nozzle.

Firemen trained on how to direct the large spray of water. They practiced the hydraulics of the ladder by having a contest to see who could put one bucket suspended from the end of the ladder into another bucket at street level by only manipulating the levers at the base of the ladder.

Finally, on Oct. 3, the large fire at the Longshots in Van Horne gave the Vinton Fire Department its first test of the aerial ladder truck.

By all accounts, the truck passed its test.

"It did everything it was supposed to to," said Scott Geissinger, one of the firefighters who manned the controls. "We are really happy with it."

Even though the American Legion building was larger than Longshots, Geissinger said the two fires were similar in their impact on the immediate area surrounding the buildings.

Geissinger believes that in the same way that the Hiawatha truck helped stopped the fire from spreading to adjoining buildings in Vinton, the Vinton truck spared other buildings in Van Horne.

Also he said, several other area fire department members were able to see first hand how much difference an aerial ladder truck can make.

Dave Boisen, another firefighter who helped with the aerial truck, said the effects of the truck's use were also apparent the day after the fire. Usually, said Boisen, there are hot spots the following day after a fire that huge. But the next day in Van Horne, there were none. The 1,000 gallons per minute had doused every hot spot.

The strong blast from the nozzle was also able to knock over a damaged chimney, helping firemen to fight the fire more efficiently.

Geissinger said that the aerial truck adds one more strength to the main force that keeps area residents and buildings protected during fires like that: The willingness of firefighters from several cities to come and work together to protect their communities.