GLASGOW, Ky. – Glasgow Assistant Fire Chief Adam Maulden said in his 19-years of service, he has never been as scared as he was Monday at a massive fire when that nearly killed his colleague.
At around 4:30 p.m., the Glasgow Fire Department responded to a fire at Hughes HVAC Supply on West Main Street.
The building is a complete loss.
While fighting the fire, a wall collapsed, nearly hitting and trapping three firefighters.
One of those firefighters, Maulden, said when the wall collapsed, he was surrounded by black smoke and couldn’t see his men.
“My first instinct was to grab for the firefighters. I found one instantly. I couldn’t find the other one. It’s kind of like you instantly get sick because you know where he was at, you know what happened and you don’t know where he’s at at that point.
“You don’t know if he is in the collapse, where he has went. Instant misery of not being able to count because, you know, I felt accountable for them,” said Maulden.
Shortly after, a utility pole snapped while the blaze roared, causing fire personnel to run from the area.
One slipped on ice and hurt his ribs and one dismounted from a ladder and hurt his back.
Both injuries were minor.
According to Glasgow Fire Chief Dereck Rogers, the ice caused more problems than just slipping.
“There was a couple of times that we moved our apparatus and in the time it took us to unhook from the hoses, move the apparatus, and hook back up, the hoses would actually start to ice up on the inside. You can’t run ice through your pumpers so we had to take the time to heat the hoses back up and get the ice out of them before we can actually hook them back up to the pumpers and get to flowing water again,” said Rogers.
Firefighters also had to work in shifts allowing each shift to de-ice and warm up their gear.
The Glasgow Fire Department will be investigating the fire alongside the Kentucky Fire Marshal Wednesday.