Fireman in famous photo remembers day well

Larry Brewer remembers the Sun Pipe Line Co. explosion in Conway like it was yesterday instead of 25 years ago today.

The horrifying photograph of the former Conway firefighter running, his body engulfed in fire, made its way around the world.

MIKE KEMP PHOTO  

Retired Conway firefighter Larry Brewer shows a photograph taken as he ran out of a fire at Sun Pipe Line in 1979. The photograph drew international attention.

Brewer, 53, has the original photograph, but he doesn't need it. That day is seared into his memory.

On April 23, 1979, the call came in about 5 p.m. that there was an explosion at Sun Pipe Line Co., a distribution point for bulk petroleum. The business, which no longer exists, was on the 600 block of south Harkrider Street.

"I'd been working about 45 minutes before I got burned.

"There were several of us in this. We were standing ankle deep in water with fire all around us. I said we need to - the words I said was - get the hell out of here."

There were levees to handle a petroleum spill if it ever happened, and the water being poured on the fire began to back up behind the levees.

He started running.

"I could just see the fire coming off my hands. I thought all of us were going to die," Brewer said, twisting his wedding ring.

He was a 28-year-old father of three at the time.

Brewer said he fought bigger fires than the one at Sun Pipe Line, but none of the others landed him in the hospital for 17 days.

The call came in about 5 p.m. that Monday while he was at home on west Martin Street.

"When I went outside, I could see a huge column of smoke to the southeast of my house."

According to a Log Cabin Democrat article, a tornado-like column of black smoke rose over the city and flames shot up to 500 feet high.

Brewer wore a helmet and his bunker coat, blue jeans and rubber boots. That was back in the days when fireman weren't hired unless they could "eat smoke," Brewer said.

"I fought many a fire in my shirt sleeves, just like I am today," Brewer said, stretching his arms out.

"Back then, we wore the old Red Ball gloves, and I'm glad I didn't have them on."

He received second-degree burns on his hands, but he believes those gloves would have melted, making it worse.

He received some first-degree burns on his face and the back of his legs, from the hip pocket to the back of his knees.

Unlike his fellow firefighter, Dirk Sutterfield, he had his coat buttoned up and it protected him.

When there was an explosion, he and Dirk fell to the ground in the fire. They got up and ran, Brewer recalled.

"I ran into him," Brewer said. "We both fell and wallowed in it some more."

The other firefighters were "hollering at me to get down." When he dropped, "they were all over me."

As they administered saline on his burned hands, "You could hear Dirk screaming in the fire. He got right up to the curb and fell and the fire went out underneath him. I thought he was dead."

Both men rode in the Faulkner County Emergency Squad ambulance to what was then Conway Memorial Hospital.

Sutterfield, who was in the fire longer than Brewer, was on a cot and Brewer was sitting inside the ambulance. A nurse told Brewer he needed to leave the ambulance, and he held up his blistered hands.

"She hollered, 'Oh my Lord, we got another one,'" Brewer said.

Brewer recalls the painful procedure called debridement, in which doctors would scrape away the burned skin.

"I went through eight debridements where they put me to sleep. They loaded me up on Valium after one debridement and I had a terrible day," he said.

Brewer, like Sutterfield, declined to go to a burn center, opting to let Dr. Robert Clark take care of them so they could be near their wives and children.

The first night in the hospital, Brewer realized how close to death he'd come.

"I thought, 'Man, I've got in a business I got this close to being killed in,'" he said.

He thought of quitting the department.

Two or three of the firemen came to see him. He recalled that one said, "Red, you're not quitting. You're gonna get back up on that horse and ride it.'"

He climbed back on his horse, so to speak, a big red firetruck. He returned to work five months after the fire.

The thought that he might have sued or been mad over the Sun Pipe Line accident almost offends Brewer.

"I was doing my job," he said, eyes flashing. "Protect and save lives and property. I'm still doing it.

"It was just an accident that happened," he said.

The incident occurred when a truck loaded with about 4,000 gallons of gasoline ignited. The truck was pulling out of a loading bay when the driver noticed the flames, according to newspaper reports.

Today, Brewer is chief of the Pine Village Volunteer Fire Department. "I love it," he said. He retired from the Conway department in 2001.

He also is a hazardous materials specialist for the Office of Emergency Services.

He started volunteering with the Conway Fire Department in 1971 after his friends in the Knights of Columbus encouraged him to join.

After fighting two fires, "I seen I was hooked on it. I liked the men and seeing what was going on."

He joined the department full time in 1974.

He scoffs at the notion he's a hero.

"I don't feel like I was a hero. We just got caught in the wrong spot."

His heroes are the late Fire Chief Wilson Drews; Fire Chief Bart Castleberry and the late firefighter Doyce Ballard.

Brewer and his wife, Marguerite, now have four children, a daughter, Connie White, and three sons, all of whom are firefighters. Larry Allen is a firefighter in the Navy, stationed in Naples, Italy; Ronnie is a volunteer with the Liberty Fire Department; and Benjamin, with the Sylvan Hills department.

Brewer has helped fight the two downtown Conway fires and the Detco Industries chemical plant fire, and he recently saved a neighbor's house from burning to the ground.

Brewer said he is sympathetic when he hears someone is burned, such as the two men in the Detco fire.

"A burn to me is one of the worst pains you can get. It makes your whole body hurt, and it don't get better in a day or two."

When Brewer works hard, the backs of his legs sometimes tighten up and he has to rest.

He's thankful to be alive and still fighting fires.

He said he thinks of the explosion often.

At a National Fire Academy meeting in Baltimore in 1994, Brewer and Sutterfield were honored as Firefighters of the Year for Conway. Sutterfield couldn't go, but Brewer attended. He was surprised to see a large photo of him running from the fire.

The moderator used the photo to teach the importance of wearing all the proper gear, and asked if anyone knew the man in the photo.

"I said, Yes, sir. I know who that was - it's myself. They said they were glad to see me there.

"We could have been wiped out just like that," he said, snapping his fingers.

"I think about it all the time, but it's just one of those things. I respect fire, but I'm not scared of it."

(Staff writer Tammy Keith can be reached by e-mail at tammy.keith@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238.)