The Tooele Transcript Bulletin’s 2016 Person of the Year is Bucky Whitehouse, fire chief of the Tooele City Fire Department and director of Tooele County Emergency Management.
A variety of disasters in 2016, including a destructive July fire in Tooele City and damaging wind storms, put Whitehouse in his role as first responder and recovery leader.
His leadership during the July 19 fire helped to prevent serious injury or death to firefighters and residents, while his efforts on the recovery ensured aid was organized and properly distributed.
When asked to rank the past year in terms of the number, variety and uniqueness of events, Whitehouse said it clearly stood out.
“It’s without question number one,” he said.
A powerful February wind storm that knocked down trees and powerlines, while sending sheds and carports tumbling through town, got the year off to an eventful start, according to Whitehouse. The storm also knocked out power to the county’s dispatch system housed in the emergency operations center for a few hours.
“That seemed to have been an indication that the year was going to be an interesting one,” he said. “And it followed suit.”
A second storm in October knocked out power, canceled school in Stansbury Park and caused property damage after winds knocked down a transmission line, which was caught and dragged by a train, uprooting more than 25 utility poles along Bates Canyon Road.
A large fire destroyed a historic building on Broadway Street, fiber optic lines into the county were severed on two occasions and Interstate 80 was closed and a portion of the road surface repaved after a semitrailer collision and fire.
All of these events, however, paled in comparison to the massive July 19 blaze, which destroyed 11 homes, damaged 17 residences and displaced more than 40 residents. Whitehouse was the incident commander the night of the fire before transitioning into his role heading the recovery effort as director of county emergency management.
Whitehouse said his first experience with serving in both roles came in 2014 when he was the first officer at the scene of the Stockton fire, which forced an evacuation and damaged the town’s water supply.
“It was a very interesting time trying to be both the incident commander and the transition into the emergency management, which by necessity has to see the big picture of how it’s affecting the community and what the community as a whole is going to need,” he said.
That experience proved valuable during the July 19 fire in Tooele City, where Whitehouse was tasked with overseeing operations including nine different agencies and as many as 100 firefighters. He said the fire was called in as a grass fire but quickly shifted to a more sever event once homes on Van Dyke Way began to catch fire and wind pushed the flames to greater heights.
As chief officer, Whitehouse said the primary concern became the safety of firefighters and residents of nearby homes.
“I will never forget some of the scenes that I immediately saw where we had firefighters, we had members of the neighborhood, that were doing everything within their power to be able to save homes and structures,” he said. “It was really an interesting experience to watch the courage and how brave all of those folks were in the response to that fire.”
Anyone listening to the scanner the night of the fire could hear Whitehouse directing various fire crews to different locations to battle the blaze, which was contained after firefighters held the line on Van Dyke Way. He said first responders know there are risks to their jobs but had to believe Whitehouse and the other command officers were putting them in a situation to be safe.
“There’s an unbelievable amount of trust that occurs with any public safety responder,” Whitehouse said. “And to me, that was very gratifying to know that I had the trust of everyone that responded to the scene to make sure that everyone goes home at the end of the night. They knew that I wasn’t going to, or that the command staff or the fire department wouldn’t, put them in a situation where they may not go home that night.”
One moment that was particularly difficult the night of the fire was meeting with command staff and determining the homes on fire were gone, Whitehouse said. Moving on to protecting other homes was a necessary but tough decision, he said.
“So we just had to make that decision, that you know what, unfortunately these houses are lost but we’ve got to save the rest of the houses within the community,” Whitehouse said.
While he was the incident commander, Whitehouse put the responsibility for saving the remaining homes and restrict the spread of the blaze firmly on the firefighters from all agencies that responded.
“It was an orchestrated event, however they just did a tremendous job saving the rest of the neighborhood,” he said.
Once the fire was finally subdued and Whitehouse was able to transition to his role in emergency management, he faced another challenging task.
“To go and have to inform those families that they had lost everything was an extremely difficult thing to do,” he said. “I had great support from the department, as well as the emergency management staff, to be able to work with those individuals and help them understand that everything that could have been done was done.”
Whitehouse said having to shift between roles as fire chief and emergency management became a more common occurrence in a challenging 2016.
“It was very much the same scenario where you try to handle the problem as swiftly as you can, but at a certain point if the problem is so large in scale, you can start to plan ahead and see that you’re going to need to transition,” he said.
There were several additional events that required an initial response and follow-up, including the destructive windstorms.
“It really brings to light that there is not a quick end to some events,” Whitehouse said. “Even though the fire trucks and police and ambulances, they may leave, there is people that were affected and there’s still people to take care of.”
Whitehouse was quick to credit the county’s first responders and dispatch for working to resolve problems quickly, as well as the employees at Tooele County Emergency Management.
“I consider myself to be the reflection of some very good teams,” he said.
Whitehouse said the response to the July 19 fire was swift and a testament to the character of the community. Donations arrived so quickly and in such volume that they were halted just days into the recovery process to ensure a measured response.
“I think it’s a real sign of this community how fast this community was willing to rally around the first responders, the families, everyone involved to try and help with the recovery process.” Whitehouse said. “The very next day, once the investigation had subsided, we began meeting with recovery organizations to try to assemble what the families were going to need and what was available already.”
Despite a 2016 marked by a number of strange and destructive fire, traffic and weather-related events, the people of Tooele County pulled through, according to Whitehouse.
“I just feel very fortunate to be in a community that is as resilient,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll hear that word, resilient, used but I think throughout all of the emergencies that have occurred this year, resiliency is probably what describes it best. The community is an incredible partner.”