THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 7, 1994 TAG: 9406070369
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DeGREGORY AND MARGARET TALEV, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: 940607 LENGTH: COLINGTON ISLAND
No injuries were reported, but hundreds of motorists were stranded for more than three hours on both sides of the only bridge to the island west of Kill Devil Hills.
{REST} Firefighters from seven Outer Banks companies fought the blaze from a crane, from boats, from the new bridge opened just two weeks ago, and from chin-deep water.
By 7 p.m., the fire was still burning. But officials were allowing motorists to cross the new bridge over the creek, which runs alongside the flaming structure. The new span was smoke-stained, but it did not appear to be structurally damaged.
``We're trying to keep the other bridge from getting too hot,'' said Nick Kiousis, a volunteer for the Kill Devil Hills Fire Department. ``If the new bridge gets too hot, it will crack.''
Firefighters said the blaze was the toughest they've had to battle in at least a decade. Flames leapt from creosote-coated timbers which lined sides of the old bridge. Creosote, a clear, oily liquid used to keep the wooden bridge from rotting, caused the fire to burn intensely and kept flames licking virtually at every section of the 530-foot-long bridge.
``I don't think anyone's seen a bridge fire like this around here,'' said Nags Head fireman Kevin Zorc, who waded through the chest-high creek to battle the blaze. ``The hardest part is you can't even get at the flames. We're working against the water and the wind.''
The fire started accidentally, construction worker Harold Hill, 37, said. He was trying to remove some bolts from the old bridge when a gust of wind sent a flame on his blowtorch into the bridge's wooden railings about 3:45 p.m.
``I started hollering and screaming to notify people,'' Hill said. ``Then I grabbed the water hose. But nothing came out. It hadn't been tapped into the new water line yet. So we got all the guys and the equipment off that bridge fast. Then we called the fire department.''
Dare County water supervisor Bob Oreskovich said firefighters pumped about 800 gallons of water per minute from hydrants and even more from the creek.
``Early Friday morning, they'd switched Colington water lines from Kill Devil Hills to the county system,'' Oreskovich said. He added that Hill may have been unable to get water from the hose because workers ``probably just hadn't switched that hose line on the bridge yet.''
Hill's employer, English Construction Corp. of Lynchburg, Va., is a contractor for the N.C. Department of Transportation, which was removing the old bridge. The center section of the bridge had collapsed under the flames by nightfall.
The span was scheduled to be torn down by July 1.
Watermen worried that debris might block their passageway under the bridge - their only route to the Albemarle and Croatan sounds. Chemical contamination from the burning creosote and asphalt roadway posed environmental concerns, said Harry R. Seymour, director of Dare County Emergency Medical Services.
``Three firemen have had to get oxygen from breathing that smoke and those fumes,'' Seymour said. ''They were OK after that - they went right back to work.''
By 5 p.m., however, most other workers were just trying to get home. Some had children stranded on the other side of the bridge. Others sat sweltering as frozen foods melted in their trunks. And dozens pulled over and parked themselves on stools at the Blue Crab Tavern, the last watering hole before the bridge.
``I got a lot of new people,'' said bar owner Argie Shultz as she passed the cordless phone from one frantic customer to the next. Many regular customers couldn't get through the roadblock. But new folks were welcome - and helped.
Some, like Mike Harrell, ducked into Shultz's bar to contact their children. Harrell had been stuck on the east side of the bridge while his son was on the west. When he told a boater about his problem, the local waterman said, ``C'mon, hop on in,'' and carried Harrell alongside the burning bridge - across the creek.
Because winds on the water could easily reignite embers, firefighters said they planned to watch the bridge through the night.
{KEYWORDS} FIRE
by CNB