93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
Sunday was the one-year anniversary of the Wooldridge fire of 2022, which destroyed at least 23 structures.
Columbia author Tim Scherrer has spent the past year writing a new 350-page book about the blaze. He launched the book Sunday afternoon at the Wooldridge community center. Mr. Scherrer tells 939 the Eagle that the first 911 call that afternoon came from a farmer who saw the blaze. He says the farmer’s call saved lives.
“That phone call initiated the response from Lieutenant (Tyson) Fahrenbrink, who was just three-and-a-half miles up the road at Cooper County station number three. He was doing some of his duties up there so he had to just hop in his truck and he went down there and he took one look at this fire and got on his bullhorn in his truck and immediately starting evacuating the town,” Scherrer says.
Mr. Scherrer writes this in the book: “The farmer’s voice warbles, mixed between astonishment and trepidation.” He says the 911 call initiated actions of first responders that evacuated the town and got residents out of peril.
The fire led to the largest statewide fire mutual aid in state history. Mr. Scherrer tells 939 the Eagle that Cooper County Fire Protection District Lieutenant Tyson Fahrenbrink was the first firefighter on-scene that day He says his decisive actions evacuated the village and set the stage for the difficult fight ahead, with the bullhorn.
“One man told me the story of how he heard that, he went out his back door, he saw the wall of fire coming at his house. So he goes back inside, he gets his truck keys. By the time he walks out the back door and moves his truck to the front, the back of his house is on fire,” says Scherrer.
Governor Parson met with Lt. Fahrenbrink when he toured the devastated town a few days after the fire. Mr. Scherrer also credits the lieutenant for calling for police support from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Cooper County Sheriff’s Department that day.
More than two dozen students at Columbia’s Fr. Tolton Catholic high school traveled to Wooldridge after the fire to help clean it up. Mr. Scherrer described that cleanup as an opportunity to help residents who’ve been devastated by the blaze.
The new book is available at Jefferson City’s Downtown Book and Toy and at two Cooper County locations: Taylors bake shop and WJ’s restaurant. The book includes 190 photos.
