Fire Devastates Downtown Bancroft; Volunteers join massive containment effort

One drawback to a weekly paper is that often the largest news for that week can happen early on, which is the case this week.  The fires that devastated the downtown area of Bancroft broke out a little after 2:00 p.m. on Friday, which, because of the Juneteenth holiday, is the very day last week’s paper went out.  By now, most readers are undoubtedly aware that the fire started at a residence—the Call home—and fairly rapidly moved down the street to two abandoned structures (those being the building that was once the theatre, and attached apartments).  A bit later, the house north of the Call home—belonging to Karen Koefed—began to smoke from the chimney.  

When it was all said and done, many agencies, volunteers, neighbors, firefighters, EMS, police, and even local pilot Curtis Home had done his best to stop the town from going up in flames.  While a significant part of town did exactly that, the buildings themselves can be rebuilt.  What can’t be replaced is the overwhelming sense of community that drove the firefighting efforts and will be needed more than ever through the rebuilding process.

The most important line in this story is that the injuries sustained are not life-threatening.  Mr. Call received burns to his face area, but he and his family managed to escape from the fire before it became an inferno.  Mrs. Koefed, across the street, was called and told that she needed to leave her house, which she was able to do safely.  The Calls reported that several pets had perished in the fire.

As the afternoon wore on, the number of agencies involved kept expanding to fill the need: the Bancroft volunteer Fire Department (which is now a true icon of what a volunteer FD can be up against and still put up an amazing fight), Caribou County Fire, Caribou County Sheriff’s office, Soda Springs Fire, Soda Springs Police, and dozens of volunteers.  Assistance also came from Lava Hot Springs, and the Bear Lake County Fire Department.  It took the combined efforts of all of these agencies—plus a cropduster—to fully extinguish the flames.  

If that wasn’t enough, a second fire was reported the next evening around ten in a residential chimney.  That fire was also put out, but certainly added to the overwhelming sense of just how precarious the seemingly safe and routine world can all of a sudden become.

The fire itself is only the first part of dealing with this town-changing event, though.  As the recovery phase of the fire starts, questions about resources and manpower have already been raised.  The water system that was used to battle the blaze might also deserve a look, as it invoked a call for residents to turn off their water in order to save pressure through the lines.  Ordinances about burning material at residential property, as well as property maintenance have also been raised.  While some of those issues are touchy subjects in some ways, they will surely need to be part of the city’s vision for disaster preparedness and mitigation moving forward.

Alana Burns lives in Bancroft, and was the person who alerted me to the fire, essentially as it was first breaking out.  Her access and knowledge of the town are much more insightful than mine.  For that reason, you can find her report on the timeline of the fire and the aftermath on pages 3 and 10.  As a newspaper, we sometimes strain against social media, but Facebook has been a very effective means of disseminating information and images, and we will continue to follow this story on our Facebook page, under “The Idaho Enterprise Caribou County News”.  

Alana has also agreed to update readers about what is happening in Bancroft as the long recovery process gets underway.  Stay tuned, and our sincere prayers go out to members of the North Gem community.

A GoFundMe effort was started for the Calls, and a link to it can be found on our Facebook page.  There will undoubtedly be other ways to contribute to the rebuilding efforts in the future, and we will keep you informed of them as they emerge.