Water puts out fire, it's what we have all been taught since we were kids. But Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer told us, when you add extreme cold it’s a dangerous combination.
“On the fire ground between the mist and the direct contact with water all the firefighters end up pretty soaked,” Schaeffer said. "It raises a level of risk pretty substantially, because they are operating in a challenging environment, whether it’s the cold, the ice, or the impact that both of those exposures have on your mind and your body.”
Take the fire at a home on Oak Street in Latah Valley Friday morning for example. Fire District 3’s Alex Turner was first on scene at around 1am, and after a couple of hours he was covered in ice.
"You're walking around kind of with your arms straight normally and then you go to bend them and it's actually kind of hard to do it, they kind of crunch and your helmet is covered in a sheet of ice,” Turner said.