July 4th Fire Scorches Tower Fire Dept.

TOWER - On a typical Fourth of July, Tower’s 22 volunteer fire fighters would be serving food, pouring beer, and preparing to shoot off fireworks.  But this year’s celebration started much different. Crews got an out of the ordinary call to respond to a fire at their own department. "A lot of the community didn't really know because they thought we were preparing for the fourth and washing our trucks," explained Tower city clerk, Linda Keith. Just hours before Tower's Fourth of July celebration, flames filled the station's storage building next to the fire hall on Pine Street. It was the engine of the station's 2010 Polaris Ranger UTV that caused the fire, according to officials. The piece of equipment hadn't been out in a week, but was scheduled to be in Tower's Independence Day parade that morning. Also in the garage, was the station's new brush truck they got from the DNR a week before the fire."With the medical equipment and the fire equipment it's not just replacing a truck,” said Keith. “You've got valves and gauges and hoses and vessels." On any given year towers Fourth of July fireworks would be stored in this building, but by a stroke of luck they were moved to a different spot avoiding what could have been an even more tragic situation."Could have been worse. Could have been way worse,” Keith said. “Could have been our main fire hall where all our trucks are stores. So that would have been much worse." With a totaled truck, snowmobile, UTV and possibly an entire building, it'll still be months until the community of Tower is able to rebuild and move forward. Because the fire only destroyed the storage building, fire department operations have not been effected.