So somewhere back around 1975 or 76, when I still lived in LaMarque and worked for the LaMarque Fire Department, I was on my 24 hour shift at station 1 when we received a mutual aid call from Texas City Fire Department. They had a major fire in the old downtown area on Sixth street. There was an old style movie theater, and several other businesses on either side with common walls.
There were three pumpers in close proximity battling the main fire. The old water mains were not supplying enough water. My job was to lay a 2 1/2″ line down one of the side streets towards the west to try and catch a hydrant that produced more water. I was a little over one thousand feet away and hooked up to the hydrant. Then set up my pumper to start pushing water to the fire scene.
Being this far away, I really had no idea what was going on except every so often, someone would call and tell me up or down on the pressure. The truck I was operating was an old 1940’s Mack 500 GPM. It was an older truck but still did it’s job. Anyone that drove and pumped it knew that after about thirty minutes of constant high RPM’s, you need to open the folding style hood on both sides.
The engine block would turn almost cherry red and would purr like a kitten once you had everything set right. From this point it was just sit back and maintain the adjustments called in every so often. Part of the job was to keep a watch on the engine, hoses and fuel. This was an old gasoline engine that did not get the greatest mileage.
About an hour into the fire, I called Texas City command, identified myself and my location. I told them that I was at 1/2 tank. I was just checking in to see how much longer I would be needed and to start thinking about sending me fuel. Everything else was going great on my part.
After another hour, I was now down to 1/4 tank. I again called Command and was told they would get to it when they could. I acknowledged and went back to watching gauges. Less than twenty minutes later the engine started sputtering and then died. No more pressure or water supply.
Then I get an urgent call from TCFD Command. Where is the water?????? I told them my engine ran out of fuel. Within minutes I had two officers and several firefighters there to help me. Unfortunately, I explained that I had been calling for fuel for hours and had no gotten anything. They took off in their pickup and started shuttling gas in one gallon cans. Since I had a 40 gallon tank that was empty, this took a while. After the third gallon, I was able to get the truck started again and water flowed.
They found additional cans and we finally filled the tank. This was very dangerous as we were pouring the gas into the tank only a few feet away from the red hot engine. But at 4Am back in those days, there were not many options.
After the fire was brought under control, I was later told that I had been supplying three trucks and all of the hand and ground lines on the south side of the fire and they held it. The north end was totally lost due to constant interruptions of water supplies as the old mains in that area would collapse and the trucks would loose water.
I never had issues with fuel at any other fire for the rest of my career.