Saturday will mark the 10-year anniversary of a day a lot of people still remember like it was yesterday.
The day, the Oregon Trail Fire ripped through a neighborhood in southeast Boise.
On Thursday, the Boise Fire Department looked back at that fire and shared what they've learned about firefighting techniques since then.
“Our firefighters were putting themselves between the fire and the people and doing evacuations,” Boise Fire Chief Dennis Doan said. “They were laying in the streets because the flames were shooting over their heads from one house to the next.
The fire destroyed 10 homes, damaged 11 others and killed a Boise State University professor.
“That was a painful night, obviously for us, the family and the community… it hurt our hearts,” Doan said.
The deadly fire was sparked by an electrical malfunction.
“Following that fire, we had to take a look a close look at ourselves and the community and say, 'are we doing something wrong?' And what we discovered was we really were,” Deputy Fire Chief Romeo Gervais said. “As a community we weren't recognizing our wildfire risk as we should, and we implemented a number of changes as a city and as a county.”
Some of the changes include: establishing partnerships with different agencies, adapting building and fire codes and including more equipment on fire engines.
“We've done everything from look at how we respond to the type of equipment we respond with, the training our firefighters get, even down to the pants that we wear,” Gervais said.
Firefighters told KTVB fire prevention starts with the homeowner.
“We want your home to survive a wildfire without anyone present and that can happen if you're doing the right kinds of things around your home,” Boise Fire Captain Jerry Mcadams, Wildfire Mitigation Specialist, said. “Let’s say you're out at the woods and you want to build a campfire, what are you going to look for to build that campfire? You're going to look for leaf litter, pine needle debris, light flashy fuel that will burn quickly, dead land and trees, so those are things you don’t want around your house.”
It’s those types of things that helped fuel the Oregon Trail Fire years ago.
“We've had a lot of big fires and devastating fires, but for our engines to pull up and see 10 houses on fire at once, with flames shooting across the street and catching the next street on fire, I haven’t seen anything like that since,” Doan said.