Firefighters Battle Hot and Cold During Building Fire In Rockwell

            The weather may have been dangerously cold, but it was still too hot at Quality Upholstery last Wednesday. Firefighters spent the bulk of the day on Highway 65 outside of Rockwell battling flames as a large barn filled with upholstery, lumber, and other flammable materials burned away.

            "It wasn't a lot of fun fighting it," said Rockwell Fire Chief Mark Lowe. "We had a lot of unknown combustibles inside the building."

            The first reports of smoke at the location were made at roughly 7:00 a.m., but the actual call reporting the fire wasn't made until 8:50. No official cause for the fire has been determined.

            Rockwell firefighters were the first on the scene, eventually joined by Sheffield and Swaledale firefighters to combat the blaze. John Ries Excavating also volunteered their equipment to push in the building's walls in order to keep them from collapsing outward.

            "Without their help we wouldn't be able to do what we did with the conditions we had," said Lowe.

            Wednesday's conditions were not very hospitable to the firefighters. While fighting the fire in the building, the firefighters also had to deal with the extreme cold outside. The fire fighter's gear provides some insulation, but firefighters still had to rotate in and out, taking turns in their truck to get warmed up.

            The location of the fire added an additional complication as well, putting the fire fighters directly on Highway 65 at the corner of a busy intersection.

            "As we started putting water on, it caused so much steam smoke that it completely blocked Highway 64 visibility," said Lowe.

            Creating a dangerous situation for the fire fighters as they moved their trucks around on the highway, the road had to be briefly closed until visibility increased and the Sheriff's Department could get in place to direct traffic.

            Fighting the fire itself was difficult due to the sheer amount of flammable material inside the building. Because it was too dangerous to send anybody inside the building, the firefighters had to fight the fire from the outside as the center burned.

            Lowe says that his team spent about three hours fighting the fire before deciding that the fire was no longer a threat to the surrounding area. They spent the remainder of the day babysitting the building to make sure the fire was contained.

            "It was still burning, but it was under control enough that we were comfortable that it wouldn't go anywhere," said Lowe. "Instead of trying to put it out, sometimes it's easier to just let the fire burn itself out."

            Though contained, the fire was still burning late into Wednesday night and was expected to smolder for a few days.