TORONTO – Sometimes, the best way to avert a potential disaster is to be at the right place at the right time – with the right tools.
In this case, “the right tool” was a small hand-held fire extinguisher, which one off duty firefighter used to suppress a brush fire in Arizona last week.
Mesa police officer Fred Arnett was driving with his friend Geoff Turley along Highway 260 just outside of Payson, Arizona when they noticed a rapidly spreading brushfire by the side of the road.
“When we got to where the smoke was at, it was clear that the fire was clearly out of control,” Arnett told NBC News 12 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Turley, an off-duty firefighter, grabbed the small fire extinguisher from Arnett’s car and immediately began battling the blaze, while Arnett recorded the encounter on his phone.
According to Turley, his most important consideration was to prevent the fire from growing into a full-blown conflagration.
“I figured if we could hit it while it was small, before it grew too much, before it got too big, we could put it out,” Turley said.
Once he had used up Arnett’s extinguisher, Turley grabbed two more from other cars that had pulled over to watch the fire, using them to finally beat down the flames.
Now the off-duty firefighter is being praised for preventing a possible forest fire.
“You don’t really think while you’re doing it,” Turley said. “You just get out and try to make a difference.”
Comments