FIREWIRE Magazine Fall 2014 | Page 12

Incident Diary: Banana Incident On the evening of September 15th, 2014 at approximately 2149 hours, ME74 was dispatched to the area of 13800 block of Slover Ave/Banana Ave for a reported “Improvement Fire”. The initial CAD notes depicted several pallets and a tire on fire. The temperature was in the low 90’s with moderate humidity and no wind. While en route, ME-74, under the command of Captain Myers, noted heavy smoke showing from Cherry Ave/Jurupa Ave. He requested the assignment be balanced to a full first alarm commercial structure fire response. The balance of the assignment consisted of BC-125, MT-77, MS-77, ME-71, MT-71 and ME-72. An additional squad was added to the assignment as per standard, adding MS-72 to the response. I also moved ME-79 to Station 71. In addition, it should be noted that BE-75 and BE-76 had just been assigned to Strike Team 6270-C for the King Fire. ME-74 arrived and was flagged down by a business owner directing them to a lot directly off of Slover Ave, the sight of a previous Pallet Yard fire several years ago. ME-74 proceeded to the rear of the lot; however,