Marine firefighters step up,
help battle blaze on Ie Shima
By Mark Oliva, Okinawa
bureau
IE SHIMA — A group of Marines recently lived up to the
Corps’ claim it is a 9-1-1 readiness force.
Several Marines from Operation Support Detachment Ie Shima responded
to a late-night call to douse a fire in a tourist area park on the island. The blaze broke
out about 11 p.m. Aug. 31 in a vacant lot near Lily Field Park on the western portion of
the small island off Okinawa’s northwest coast.
Piles of trees, brush and debris from past typhoons were fueling the
blaze, and local firefighters were having trouble bringing the fire under control.
“Ie Village has only two firetrucks and they were not enough to
put out the fire that night,” said Tadashi Nishie, of Ie Village’s Fire
Prevention Department. “We requested the military for their help 30 minutes after the
fire was first reported at about 11 p.m. Firefighters from the village tried to put out
the fire by themselves for about 30 minutes, but learned that it was beyond their
capability with two firetrucks.”
The request for help came to the gate guard who relayed it to the
Marines.
“We were pretty much shut down for the evening,” said
Gunnery Sgt. Danny Barrett, detachment chief. “They came in and woke me up to tell me
about it. I made the decision we’d respond, but if it were a structural fire,
we’d assist the effort, but let the local fire department make the entry.”
Minutes later, the Marines were suited up and rolling out of the gate
with the P-19 fire fighting vehicle and a tanker. They arrived on the scene on a cliff
above the fire.
“We were about 60 feet above the fire and the flames were
reaching up to us,” said Lance Cpl. Jimmy Luera, a crash fire-rescue man. “When
we got there, the fire was already a monster.”
Luera, normally a crewmember, turned out to be the senior Marine
firefighter present and took charge.
“Everywhere around the fire was nothing but fuel,” Luera
said. “We decided to hit it with the roof and bumper turret from the P-19. In the
first five minutes, we got it about 65 percent contained. But when we were refilling, the
fire flared up again.”
Marine firefighters pumped the 1,000 gallons from the firefighting
vehicle and an additional 2,500 gallons from the accompanying tanker, before sending for
refills at a local reservoir. In all, the Marines sprayed more than 7,000 gallons of water
over the blaze.
Marines and local Japanese firefighters fought the blaze for nearly
three hours before bringing it under control.
“If we didn’t get there, they would have been fighting that
fire into the next day,” Luera said.
Local firefighters echoed the assessment, praising the Marines for
stepping in to aid the community.
“Had it not been for the help from U.S. Marine Corps, the fire
would have spread much further,” Nishie said.
Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report.
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