Las Animas/Bent County Fire VS Structure Fire

Description: LABC Fire Protection District and Assisting Agencies are on Scene in the 700 Block of Carson Ave fighting an active structure fire on Friday afternoon. Photo by Jeremy Pryor... Complete Photo Gallery and Videos Below...

Published: 02/24/2023

Byline: SECO News

Las Animas/Bent County Fire VS Structure Fire

Interview with Las Animas Fire Chief Jim Pryor:

Interview Transcript:

SECO News: This is Adrian Hart with your Southeast Colorado News on seconews.org. I'm here with Las Animas Fire Chief Jim Pryor on the scene at a structure Fire. We're looking at a vacant building. And you guys have been out here for several hours at least, right?

Chief Pryor: Yes.

SECO News: Do you want to give us the report on the scene?

Chief Pryor: When we got here, it was fully engulfed and there was no need of trying to put it out. So we just let it burn the building next to it. On fire, too. On fire, So I left both buildings go down. Right now they're probably 80%, 85%. Okay, we're gonna let it do it for the evening and it'll be patrolled all night long.

SECO News: Okay, so you guys are gonna be on scene for the duration doing the all nighter. Do you have any assistance on the mutual aid?

Chief Pryor: No, we didn't. Mutual aid. It was there was nothing in the building that was of, so we protected the buildings around here to our north.

SECO News: We got photo bombed there's a first time for everything, even at the scene of a structure of fire. Of course you've got a lot of guys in your volunteer fire department. Tell us about your department a little bit. Can you?

Chief Pryor: We're all volunteers. We have 30 guys in here right now. Everybody of all different walks of life, so we have a lot of mechanics and everything that really help out a lot.

SECO News: All right. Any particular challenges on scene? Fire just to make sure the other buildings to behind us didn't catch on fire. That was the only thing we were concerned about. Okay. And we did have some road closures, correct. Did you close the road at all? Yes, we closed them all the way around we shut them down.

Assitant Chief Gardner: How you getting home?

SECO News: Oh, we even have hecklers on this interview.

Chief Pryor: Yeah, that's my fire chief assistant.

SECO News: Yeah, he very kindly pointed you out so I could come get the interview.

Chief Pryor: That's okay. So as far as the, cause we're under investigation at this point.

SECO News: Is that the case?

Chief Pryor: Yep. We have a suspicion that there might have been somebody in there. It was homeless or whatnot. We don't know. Okay. So we don't know anything about what started it, how it started, it was fully engulfed when we got here, so it makes it pretty hard.

SECO News: All right. Good that you were able to prevent any further spread and property damage. And anything else you'd like to add?

Chief Pryor: Nope. We just thank the community for all their help and their donations and it makes it really nice.

SECO News: Any, shout outs you want to give for those donations? Who helped you out?

Chief Pryor: When we have big fires everybody comes to the fire station, they bring water, they bring everything, so we've got a great community here.

SECO News: We sure do. For the Las Animas Fire Department and the People of Southeast Colorado, I'm Adrian Hart with your Southeast Colorado News.

Video by Andrew Brassfield

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