Remember how back at school, you’d be told if you didn’t pay attention and study, you might end up being a ditch digger? Well, this past year the Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting learned first-hand what a noble and useful professional a good ditch digger is.
This past fall Mother Nature showed us all that she’s the boss, and sometimes a mean and unpredictable boss. First on Friday, September 26, strong rains hit the museum and water rose into the Hall of Heroes, along the east side of the building. The carpet was soaked, requiring crews of volunteers to elevate the display panels in the hall up onto wooden blocks to keep them from water damage. The following day the water was extracted, fans were set out, and carpets were thoroughly cleaned by Martin’s All Floor Service. The respite would be short lived.
On Monday, October 13, a second, even stronger microburst struck the east Valley. Tempe and East Phoenix were hit hard; roofs were torn off buildings and hundreds of trees were knocked down. Many people were displaced. By comparison, The Hall of Flame was fortunate; still, we sustained thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. Water again rose into the Hall of Heroes, and to a lesser extent into Gallery One and our library.
Technician Alex of Brimley’s White Glove Chem-Dry came to our rescue again that very day—continuing the job even after he received word that his own wife’s car was damaged by a falling tree—clearing most of the water out of the hall. But the carpets there were still damp, and smelled like it, so a couple of days later the company returned to give the carpet a thorough shampooing.
After being hit in just over two weeks by two storms of the sort that would normally occur in Arizona once or twice in a decade, it was clear that provision for this sort of weather would have to be made to our facility. And it was here that the public showed us, heartwarmingly, how much the Hall of Flame means to them. Friend of the museum Christopher Weed organized a GoFundMe page to raise money for our recovery efforts, and virtually every media outlet in the local market did some sort of coverage of situation.
Indeed, the coverage was so generous that it had an unexpected result: many people got the impression that we were closed because of the damage, which may have had an adverse effect on our attendance during the holiday season! In actuality, the Hall of Flame never closed, although we had to close the Hall of Heroes for a few days just after the events. We are open and fully functional now.
We quickly raised the funds we needed to launch our recovery efforts, with a beautiful new “French drain” style drainage ditch that runs north along the east side of the building and steers water toward the gulley to the west of the Hall of Flame. A few lighter rainfalls since the microburst have shown the ditch, built by Genesis Landscape Solutions under the direction of Brad Gunder, Tim Patrick, Jayson Gonzales and their team to be effective so far.
Donations also funded the repair of the ceiling under our front entryway. Goro and his team from Kovach Enclosure Systems in Chandler. We have other projects in mind for 2026, but thanks to our many kind supporters in the media and the public, we’re off to a great start!