Powell’s volunteer firemen once again had a holiday weekend interrupted by a major fire.

In May, firemen spent a chunk of their Memorial Day weekend dealing with the fire at Treasure Valley Seed. Last Friday, they spent their New Year’s Eve fighting a fire at a storage building near Glad Tidings Church and welcomed in the New Year at midnight while cleaning up their equipment and preparing it for the next fire.

They did their job well Friday night, containing the fire and keeping it from spreading to the church building itself while dealing with extreme cold, slippery footing and a breakdown in communication with Cody dispatch.

The city of Powell’s Electric Department also performed well. Recently, there have been discussions about slow responses by the department, but Friday evening, they were there promptly. After cutting power to the church property, they worked to restore it to the church building itself.

The city also helped with the communications problem caused by the failure of a repeater in the Big Horn Mountains that interrupted contact with the sheriff’s office dispatchers, switching communications to Powell police dispatch.

As always, Powell’s emergency medical people were on scene promptly as well.

Here at the Tribune, we rotate the responsibility for covering fires and accidents, and all of us have, at one time or another, watched the response of our emergency personnel to major and minor fires, highway accidents or other unfortunate situations. We appreciate the time they take, not only when they are called out, but the evenings and Saturdays they give up to make sure they are prepared for the next emergency.

We also appreciate last week’s quick response of the city in cutting off electricity and alleviating the communications problem.

Everyone, as always, did a good job.