At 07:09 on Friday morning, Po-Mar-Lin Fire Company was dispatched to a house filling up with smoke from the basement in Pocopson Township. Located within Longwood Fire Company's first due area; Engine 25-1 arrived first and reported visible fire in the basement and requested a working fire dispatch and a tanker task force. The tanker task force is used due to the lack of fire hydrants in the area.

Engine 36 was out the door first with a crew of 5, and was the second arriving engine. Its crew made their way to Engine 25-1 and immediately started working. The basement and garage were shrouded with flames burning completely through one of the garage doors. Two members from Engine 36 started working with tools towards removing the second garage door to gain more access, while the other two firefighters made the push into the garage and basement. Inside the two firefighters were met with flames rolling over the ceiling, overcrowded conditions, and lots of obstacles in the way of the main area of fire. Visibility was incredibly low due to the heavy smoke flowing out of the garage, yet they were able to move through the basement, locate, and knock the bulk of the fire. The high heat within the basement caused the paper and plastic contents of the garage to re-ignite multiple times, with this threat, the two firefighters stayed inside the garage operating a hose line.

Around this time, Po-Mar-Lin crews from the Rescue and Brush made their way to the first floor of the house with a backup line. They witnessed a drastic change in temperature and visibility as the roof rolled over with fire and became engulfed in flames. Fire traveled up through the walls and reached all the way to the roof; the call for a second alarm house fire was dispatched. Our two firefighters in the basement were pulled out at this time and started an exterior attack on the visible fire out of the roof and the first floor. Brush 36 crew which was inside the first floor put their attack line in service and began another interior attack, knocking a large amount of fire. Once the flames were suppressed on the first floor and in the roof, both the Engine and Rescue crews went into the basement to extinguish hotspots, while the Brush crew operated on the first floor.

After a lengthy effort against the flames and conditions, the fire was placed under control 2 hours after the initial call came through. Po-Mar-Lin crews then began helping with the overhaul process removing all of the burned material and items from the garage. Another 2 hours passed before Po-Mar-Lin crews were cleared from the scene, but the work did not stop there! Station 36 then went to Longwood Fire Company to help clean and dry the dirty hose and repack new hose lines onto their engine. All together Po-Mar-Lin sent Engine 36, Rescue 36, Brush 36, Tanker 36, and its fire police to the scene. Po-Mar-Lin is proud of all their members that gave up a large portion of their day to make sure everyone got out safe and sound.

Be sure to check out all the photos from the call and helmet cam footage courtesy of firefighters Ivan Dowling and Joshua May.