Personal assistance prevents disaster
When it comes to making official commendations to private citizens, Soldotna Mayor David Carey loves his job. At the last Soldotna City Council meeting, Carey cited the reaction of private citizen Bryan Goforth and the Central Emergency Services response team headed by Jeff Tucker for a collaborative effort that avoided personal injury during a life-threatening structural fire.
Early Tuesday morning, May 20th, Bryan Goforth was crossing the Kenai River Bridge in Soldotna, when he noticed smoke coming from what appeared to be the Blockbuster building, "As I continued down the Sterling highway, I noticed the smoke was coming from behind the ACS building and that the CES was not on the scene, so I pulled in to see what was going on, I went in and a lady was on the phone with 911 when I got there, but she said she was not the occupant of the trailer, so I went to the side door of the trailer, because the front door was on fire along with the porch, and banged on the door and the wall until they were up and out of the trailer, then I went to the unit next door and alerted them," said Goforth.
The trailer home belonged to Danielle Fidai and her husband, "I really had no idea what was going on, I heard the alarm, but hesitated. I thank everybody that came to help," said Fidai. Lesley Quelland was part of the CES response team and said, "People like Mr. Goforth who took the time and the effort to go and investigate the smoke that he saw that morning made the difference in the early warning for the occupants. It made our job a lot better and fortunately this was a positive incident that resulted in no injuries to either the residents or the firefighters," said Quelland.
Mayor Carey's Commendation applauded the community partnership between local citizens and government employees and said that local citizens often provide the first line of caring and communication during times of crisis and emergency.