PHOENIX - The smouldering remains of Safeway store at 35th and Northern avenues continue to grab the attention of firefighters more than 24 hours later. Crews were still putting out hot spots around 8:30 p.m.Thursday night as onlookers watched from behind a chain link fence.
"Just to see it this way - breaks my heart," one woman said she she watched the store she once frequented. Her feeling comes from the memories of good times in the store.
The memory of Phoenix firefighter Bret Tarver might be the reason this wasn't a tragic disaster.
"We'll never let a firefighter die in vain and the way we want to honor Bret is to continue learning the lessons we had from that day," Phoenix Fire Captain Larry Subervi said standing next to a model supermarket. Tarver died battling a 2001 blaze at the Southwest Supermarket that once stood at 35th Ave. and McDowell Rd.
"I think for a lot of us that were there that day- every time you see it - it's an eerie feeling," Subervi said referencing the model to scale of that Southwest Supermarket which is purposely placed outside of a classroom at the Phoenix Fire Training Facility.
"We used to always say we have a residential mentality so we run on so many house fires and we used to fight these the same way we fought a house fire, we didn't have limitations of how far we would go in. Now we don't go further than 150 feet."
That rule was put into place after Tarver's death and may be the reason nobody was hurt.
"The lessons we learned here in this day in March of 2001 - absolutely saved firefighter's lives yesterday."
A silver lining in what was a tragic day in Phoenix Firefighting history, as another life may have been spared from the lesson.