Neighbors Save House From Fire

A fire broke out at the back of a home on the corner of Galena Avenue and Salmon Street in Chubbuck on Wednesday afternoon, and it was the quick thinking of a few neighbors that helped get the fire under control even before fire crews got there.

They saved the house and gave two local fire departments the chance to practice a new protocol.

Before any of that happened, Cody Moss, 20, was running out of his house after his sister noticed that their neighbor’s house was on fire.

“I just ran out the door and sprinted across the street and hopped over the fence and turned on his garden hose. I got lucky that I turned on the hose with the sprayer (on it), and just climbed up the side of his deck and started going at it,” Moss said.

Moss said he wasn’t scared, and he didn’t get hurt, aside from breathing in some smoke. And he was able to keep the hose on the fire until the Chubbuck Fire Department showed up.

Soon more neighbors figured out what was going on and realized there were dogs in the back yard where the fire started. They were able to bend the fence to get the dogs to safety.

One of those neighbors was Tonya Gomez.

“The other gentleman that helped put the fire out said, ‘Go get the hose on the other side,’ so I went and got the hose and jumped up on the porch and started spraying down the one side while he got the other side,” Gomez said.

She helped guide Mika the dog out to safety.

“I’m thinking, that’s what you do for your neighbors and friends, good deeds, what you do for others will come back upon you,” Gomez said.

Chubbuck Fire Chief Eric King said, because the fire was pretty much out when they got there, it gave them the chance to practice a new protocol with Pocatello Fire Department. Any time Chubbuck has a structure fire, Pocatello will help out if it can, and vice versa.

“It just gives us that much more resources to make our own people safe, and we can do things a little bit faster with those other resources coming,” King said.

But when it came to resources on Wednesday, all the fire department needed was a few good neighbors like Moss.

“I was just doing what I thought needed to be done. I don’t really feel like a hero, just helping a friend,” Moss said.

The home owner wasn’t home at the time of the fire, but said Moss was definitely a hero.

The investigation into the cause of the blaze is still ongoing, but the King said it wasn’t suspicious.