Blizzard victory parade almost thwarted by nearby fire call

Kids get an exciting lap in the truck

Crested Butte loves a parade, and one scheduled for last Friday evening to celebrate the Peewee state hockey championship almost ended a minute after it started.

The 11- and 12-year-old hockey players of the Blizzard team had won the state championship the previous weekend and to celebrate the accomplishment a ride on the local fire truck down Elk Avenue was planned for seven o’clock. The team met at about 6:30 p.m. and helped decorate the truck. They put the state championship banner on the front and adorned their ride with balloons. Then the kids piled on top of the vehicle in their hockey jerseys.
As the truck left the station to head up Maroon toward Elk Avenue to start the parade with marshal’s cars in front and back, driver and fire chief Ric Ems noticed smoke coming from a house at 207 Maroon. “We made it about four houses. I stopped the truck and jumped out, telling the kids to hang on a minute,” he said.
Ems saw “pressurized smoke coming out of what looked like a chimney stack,” he said. “Smoke was also rolling out from the eves of the house.”
Ems gained entry to the house and said it was evident that no one had occupied it for a while. The owners of the house, the Ruggeras, leave in the fall to spend time near their children on the East Coast for the winter.
Ems paged the fire and ambulance crews and left the marshals at the scene. “I took a quick parade run down Elk to the Four-way Stop and back,” he said.
“A pumper truck was on the scene quickly. I unloaded the kids back at the fire station and we quickly stripped the balloons and banner from the truck. It was pretty interesting, to say the least.”
Ems said the fire appeared accidental in nature and it appeared to have started in the basement. It is still under investigation. “We had a pretty quick fire knock-down,” Ems explained. “We found the seed of the fire downstairs pretty rapidly. We ventilated the house and were on the scene until about 11.”
No one was injured in the incident.