Shoshone County Fire District No. 1 Chief John Miller won’t say it, but the expression on his face tells you almost everything you need to know.

He’s a little tired.

And it’s not just him. All of Shoshone County’s EMS crews and law enforcement agencies have been put to the test over the past eight days, beginning with the head-on collision last Wednesday that closed Interstate 90 near Pinehurst for over 12 hours.

“We’ve had a major event every day for the past week,” Miller said. “These things usually happen in threes, but not this time.”

These major events include motorcycle accidents in remote areas of the county, several accidents that required life flight, cars going off the road as they attempted to traverse Moon Pass, a shooting, several structure fires and more than a few life-threatening medical calls.

Many of these calls came in over the weekend, and then Monday things were dialed up several notches.

Around 9:45 p.m. a call came in about a structure fire at a multi-dwelling unit in Cataldo. Due to the nature of the call, both Shoshone County Fire District’s 1 and 2 responded, as well as the Mullan Fire Department, the Prichard-Murray Volunteer Fire Department and deputies with the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office.

SCFD No. 2 Chief Scott Dietrich said the Idaho State Fire Marshal's Office has determined that the fire was caused by a gas grill that was used too close to an exterior wall.

Three of the six apartments were severely damaged by fire, water and smoke. The other three sustained only smoke damage. There was no loss of human life during this fire, but according to Chief Dietrich, a dog, cat and some fish perished in the blaze.

Firefighters were able to get the fire under control, but while they were working on that another call came in — reports of "shots fired" in the Woodland Park area of Burke.

As crews were dispatched from the SCFD No. 1 firehouse in Osburn, other crews wrapped up their work in Cataldo so they could assist in Woodland Park, nearly 25 miles away.

Multiple departments responded, including Kellogg Police Department and the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office, to the Woodland Park call which was an alleged attempted murder and suicide, which took the morning to clear.

Later that day, just before 2 p.m., another call came. This one, a structure fire in the Polaris area of Osburn.

Many of the residences in this area are trailers or manufactured homes that are in close proximity to one another. This call-out was to a shed that caught fire allegedly due to a failed extension cord running a chest freezer. Within the shed were several oxygen tanks, as well as the oxy-acetylene welding station. One explosion was reported and a nearby tree caught fire, but the responding fire crews from both of Shoshone County’s Fire Districts were able to get the fire under control and extinguished before any damage could be done to the adjacent residences. Once again, no one was injured, due largely to the quick response from emergency crews.

Chief Miller is thankful all the local emergency responders are working cohesively.

“One of the things that made all of these incidents of the past week go smoother or have better outcomes than they would’ve in the past is the way we’re working together,” Miller said. “It’s a whole lot more than it was in the past. We’re training together, we don’t wait to be ‘toned out,’ if we hear something or they hear something we just go — we don’t wait for each other to call and ask for help. This saves time and some thinking, we just get an immediate response.”