Fire Destroys Ice Shack Amid Winter Games Activities On Smith’s Bay

Arnolds Park-Okoboji Fire Chief Chris Yungbluth tells KUOO news firefighters were called to the scene around 9:45 a.m…(click here for comment.) “When we arrived we had a camper shell that’s been converted to an ice shack that was fully involved in fire. There was no occupants in the camper shell or ice shack at the time. Some good citizens were quick thinking and managed to move a pickup that was parked right next to it, they were able to get that pulled away from it, and also an LP tank pulled away from it. When the Fire Department arrived we were able to extinguish it fairly quickly. Of course they’re small buildings so it didn’t take much to get it knocked down and the owners had already towed it off the ice after we were able to pick up as much as we could of the burnt shell and reduced the environmental impact.”

Yungbluth says a malfunctioning heater was the probable cause…(click here for comment.) “Not exactly sure what the malfunction was, but that was the area where near the fire originated when we interviewed with witnesses and that’s what we’re going to put down as the cause.” Okay, so no injuries or anything like that? “Correct, no injuries. Just real slick conditions for firefighters. We all managed not to fall down anyway, so…”

Yungbluth says the fire posed another special challenge for firefighters in that it was some distance from shore…(click here for comment.) “We’re always worried about how we’re going to get out to those things and we managed to get our grass rigs out there, we felt comfortable enough about the ice thickness. Generally we have a rule that we don’t drive any of our vehicles onto the ice, but based on the information we had we felt comfortable enough to drive them out there to atleast extinguish the fire.”