TOOELE — Dan Dow has been a firefighter for more than 30 years and has seen more than enough of his fair share of tragedies.

But there's a good chance he has never felt as helpless as he did on July 9.

"We could see the smoke and flames and we just weren't able to go and it was really hard on the morale of the firefighters because that's what they're here for," Dow said. "That's what they live for and train for."

Dow is the Fire Chief of the Tooele Army Depot Fire Department. He remembers hearing the calls for help from other departments that day on the scanner.

The fire was intense: in the house where the fire started at 740 South and 780 West, the flames jumped to the house next door.

However, even though his fire department was just five minutes away from the homes, none of the firefighters could respond. Dow said he blames it on federal budget cuts because of the current government sequestration.

"We sat here at the front of the station," said Dow.

Normally, his crew would have helped Tooele's fire department, but just two days before the double house fire, Dow was told his team would only be allowed to respond to calls on Army property because of federal budget cuts.

"It's really disheartening for me and the firefighters that work for me because they're trained and ready to go," Dow said. "It's in their nature to want to help and knowing we can't provide that anymore, it's just real disheartening."

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There was a lot of panic about the sequester in the final days of February. We were told it would hurt the government's ability to properly inspect beef, defend our nation and a whole host of other things.

The July 9 fire is just one example. Since the cuts went into effect three weeks ago, Dow said there have been 16 calls for mutual aid help from other departments, meaning 16 calls they couldn't help.

"They've been in place for 30 years I've been on the fire department, and we've always been able to do this," Dow said. "With the furlough cuts and the reduced staffing, and the hiring freeze, it's hard to have the staffing numbers to be able to provide that anymore."

Right now only the minimum number of necessary firefighters are working at any time. They can't leave the Tooele Army Depot in case of an emergency within the depot's boundaries.

In the past there were extra firefighters who could respond to outside calls for help.

"It's very frustrating," said Kathy Anderson, spokesperson for the Tooele Army Depot, "Our hearts go out to the families that lost their homes, and us sitting back knowing what we could have done if we were able to go to a call and support them."

Assistant Tooele City Fire Chief Bucky Whitehouse was the incident commander during the fire that burned the two houses.

"Often, the Tooele Army Depot is the first agency we call for mutual aid help," he said.

Tooele's fire department is an all-volunteer department. Whitehouse said he isn't sure having extra firefighters would have saved one of the homes from burning, but the extra manpower and faster response time, could have helped.

It's also not just house fires Dow and his firefighters can't help on.

Responding to an emergency, like helping on car crashes, ATV accidents or wildfires, even in a life-or-death situation, would be in violation of an order from the Department of Defense, said Anderson.

The furlough is expected to last until the end of September.

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