Jon Johnson Photo/Gila Herald: A firefighter moves a hose into position. Firefighters battled a Thatcher structure fire on Reay Lane for nearly four hours on Saturday. One occupant was reportedly flown to a Phoenix burn center for treatment of second-degree burns.
Passerby pulls occupant from fire
“I was just on my way to work.”
Good Samaritan Mike Rhinehart
By Jon Johnson
THATCHER – A Thatcher resident was pulled from a house fire on Saturday by a man who happened to be passing by on his way to work. The resident was treated at the scene by paramedics before being transported to Mt. Graham Regional Medical Center. According to a family member, he was then airlifted to a Phoenix burn center for further treatment of second-degree burns to his back and arm.
The Good Samaritan, identified as Mike Rhinehart, said he just did what anybody would have done in that situation.
“I was just on my way to work,” Rhinehart said, wishing to not elaborate further.
A couple of young men came upon Rhinehart as he was assisting the occupant out of the house and helped as well. They said Rhinehart also attempted to rescue some dogs from the fire and lost his cell phone in the process.
The Thatcher Fire Department responded at about 4 p.m. to a fire in the 1300 block of Reay Lane and immediately called for backup. Safford and Pima responded in kind with Safford utilizing its ladder truck to shoot water from above onto the blaze, while Thatcher had a truck shooting water from it as well as multiple firefighters on the ground. Thatcher Fire Chief Steve Curtis lauded the collaborative effort from Safford and Pima and credited the team’s assistance in stopping the blaze from spreading to more residences.
“If we wouldn’t have had help we would have lost, probably, that other house north of them,” Curtis said. “And maybe it would’ve got to another house too. That’s why we called Pima and Safford to help us because it was too big for the amount of people we had.”
Curtis said the fire might have started in the laundry room, but due to the severity there was no way of telling. Thatcher Fire previously responded to a fire at the same location years ago involving a separate structure. In both instances, the amount of items burning hampered firefighting efforts, according to Curtis.
A lot of debris was strewn about the area and some small fires caught nearby but they were put out by local residents. Firefighters kept the main fire to the one property, however, an adjacent residence to the north suffered heat damage to its siding and had a shed scorched as well.
In addition to the home, a fifth wheel, a boat, five vehicles, a side-by-side UTV, several ATVs, a shop filled with welding equipment and tools, a two-story apartment, and a chicken coop with chickens all burned.
Firefighters had to cut the shop and residence open from the roof to put water inside.
While firefighters had to combat the fire in dangerous triple-degree heat and deal with exhaustion, there was also an amount of ammunition on the property that was exploding off and on for nearly an hour, according to Curtis. Some firefighters became overheated, but no injuries to firefighters were reported.
“Some of our guys were spent,” Curtis said. “We had to rotate guys in and out.”
Firefighters didn’t finish for the day and leave the station until about 8 p.m.
In addition to Thatcher Police, Graham County Sheriff’s Office, and Pima Police were on the scene as well to help with securing the area, however, firefighters still had problems accessing the fire quickly due to the number of people driving around the scene and parking too close nearby. Also, a wall outlining the property along with the amount of items on the property made fighting the fire difficult as well, according to Curtis.
To view the Gila Herald’s Photo Album of the fire click here.
