Fighting fires outside the city with limited resources

LUBBOCK, Texas- The Wolfforth Fire Department said fighting fires outside of city limits can be challenging due to limited water sources.

Colene Perry, a neighbor of the house that caught fire on New Year’s Eve said she and her other neighbors helped fire crews fill a pool with their own water hoses.

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Chief Lance Barrett of Wolfforth Fire Department said having to travel to a hydrant can cause delays and resources.

“You have to drive a truck back and forth from the hydrant and carry anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 gallons at a time and shuttle back and forth so it takes multiple trucks to do that,” he said.

But he said in the case of the fire on New Year’s Eve, the fire had grown so big that even having a hydrant close by would have resulted in severe house damages.

“A fire that size of that magnitude, you know there wasn’t much we could do,” he said. “Once [we] got there we did save the barn and the pool house. But other than that, the house was already lost when we got there.”

Barrett said he’s grateful for the volunteers he had help that night and who continue to help.

“If it wasn’t for the volunteers, it would be a disaster,” he said. “Volunteers are the backbone of the fire service across the United States. … I know like a town of our size, we wouldn’t have a fire department if we didn’t have volunteers.”