By Johnny Edwards
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
FULTON, Ga. — Fulton fire station nearest fatal blast had no working engine. Fire chief applies for grant to offset shortfall.
The fatal house explosion that shook a south Fulton neighborhood last month exposed a weakness in the county’s fire coverage.
When a house near Fairburn blew up in flames — rattling nearby houses, filling the the street with black smoke and setting the house next door ablaze — all Fulton County Fire and Rescue could send to the scene was a single ambulance.
The nearest fire station, Station 15 on Gullatt Road, had no working engine that Saturday afternoon, Channel 2 Action News and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution have learned. That truck had been moved to Station 7 on Buffington Road because its engine was out of service. Station 7’s regular backup truck was out of commission, too.
Fulton had notified four other fire departments that it would need help if a fire broke out in that area of the county. When the house at the corner of Garvey Drive and Milam Road, in the Milam Manor subdivision, exploded a little after 1 p.m., dispatchers called on the Fairburn Fire Department, which sent two trucks.
Fulton fire Chief Larry Few blames the heat for there being no engine at Station 15. Several weeks of 90-plus temperatures have taken a toll on his fleet, and on Aug. 27, he put his trucks where he thought they were needed most, in stations covering areas with the highest call volumes.
Few said he’s applying for a $1.3 million federal grant, requiring a 20 percent match, in hopes of paying for three new engines.
“What occurred, I would say, was the perfect storm, but the system did not break down,” Few told Channel 2. “The citizens were not unprotected.”
Neighbors who felt the blast, then stood waiting outside for fire trucks only to see Fulton County police cars and the ambulance arrive first, said they didn’t feel that way. Deitrick Carter, who lives two doors down, had his wife and two small children evacuate when the house between them went up in flames.
“Our house is going to burn down, that’s what I was thinking,” he said. “Why would they send an ambulance when it’s a fire?”
Few said police cars frequently arrive before firefighters, and if the ambulance from Station 15 beat the first Fairburn truck, it was only by about half a minute. The two firefighters in the ambulance went to work with the city’s equipment.
The mutual aid arrangement “worked beautifully,” he said.
Average response times — the time between firefighters being dispatched and arriving at the scene — are about 5 minutes, 45 seconds in south Fulton, and the Fairburn response was within that, Few said.
Dispatch records obtained by Channel 2 and the AJC through an open records request tell a different story, however, with the first Fairburn fire truck on the scene about eight minutes after being dispatched.
Unincorporated south Fulton residents pay an extra property tax rate for city-type services such as fire, police and parks. This year, the County Commission raised the rate by 0.810 to 8.969, or about $450 per year on a $200,000 home with a homestead exemption.
Oscar Williams, who lives on the opposite side of the house that exploded, worries what might have happened had the grass between them not been cut, allowing the fire to spread his way. He said it troubles him that he pays the extra tax, yet Fairburn showed up first.
“If we’re paying taxes, they should have these engines running,” Williams said. “Have a replacement, or something.”
One hundred firefighters on the scene couldn’t have saved the two people found dead inside, Few said.
Police said Beverly Bland, 33, died of strangulation, and an adult male died of smoke inhalation. Few confirmed that the man killed her, doused a sleeping bag with gasoline, laid the body on the bag and doused it with more gasoline, then lit it on fire.
The gasoline fumes exploded, killing the man, Few said.
Two children who lived in the house were found safe elsewhere after the explosion.
Copyright 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution