Lemoore volunteers firemen respond quickly Saturday to East D Street blaze

Saturday, July 23, 2016 - 11:48am By Ed Martin, Editor

Lemoore’s Volunteer Fire Department volunteers were rousted from their early-morning coffee to respond to an East D Street house fire Saturday morning (July 23). The call came in at 7:30 a.m. and volunteers were on the scene in minutes.

Fifteen volunteers and five Kings County firefighters were on the scene of a fire that began and was mostly confined to the garage.

Unfortunately, according to Assistant Chief Bruce German, in addition to the destruction of the garage, a new vehicle inside the garage was also destroyed.

“We kept it in the garage,” said German as his crews knocked holes in the garage to determine the extent of the blaze. German said the cause of the fire still needs to be determined. “At this point we can’t figure out what started it.”

Fortunately, German said there were no injuries, and fire fighters wrapped up the fire at about 10:15 a.m.

Earlier this month the Lemoore Volunteer Fire Department was the recipient of a Class 2 Insurance Service Office (ISO) rating, placing the all-volunteer force at the level of many of the best paid fire departments in the country – as it relates to response times to events.

Out of nearly 50,000 fire departments nationwide, only about 1,000 departments earned a Class 2 rating.