Firefighters quickly save two dwellings

Firefighters from two agencies quickly knocked down a hot, fast-moving brush fire Sunday morning that threatened at least two structures in the Arrowhead Lane area west of Fallon.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Fallon Fire Chief Ralph Hamman said both Fallon / Churchill Volunteer Fire Department and the Federal Fire Department from Naval Air Station Fallon both flanked the fire to stop its spread toward two houses. Hamman said FCVFD responded with three engines, two tenders and 30 firefighters. Federal Fire sent one engine and a crew.

Ed Smotherman, who lives across the dirt road from one of the houses, said he heard a noise.

“I heard an explosion over there,” he said of the house closest to him. “They (the residents) are not even home.”

Smotherman, though, was spraying water out of a garden hose on a brush fire adjacent to his property line and inching toward his fence.

“This guy drove his pickup truck over here (parked next to the fence), and it had to have something on fire on it. Look at the grill … it’s melted,” Smotherman said, pointing toward the pickup’s front end.

While Smotherman was spraying water on the northern flank of the fire, two firefighters were spraying water along the road and also at the south side near a mobile home.

A nearby resident said he didn’t know where the fire was coming from until he heard the fire trucks roaring down Arrowhead Lane. Matt Hanifan counts himself lucky.

“The fire did not affect my property,” he said.