Columbus High School football coaches battle a car fire during halftime

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – Several Columbus High School football coaches helped contain a car fire at an away game in Beloit last Friday. They said they caught wind of the fire during halftime while they were in the locker room, less than 100 yards from the burning vehicle in the FJ Turner High parking lot.

“Our statistician saw smoke coming from the parking lot, and we thought, ‘Okay, that’s kind of weird for someone to be tailgating or having a cookout,'” Columbus assistant coach Tarek Herschleb said.

They quickly determined that the smoke was coming from a burning car in the parking lot.

“Two minutes before we walk off the field and talk about what we’re going to do to end the second half of the game, then all of a sudden we’re in the locker room and we hear there’s a fire,” Columbus assistant coach Jerrod Fox said.

Herschleb said he was one of the first people out there to try to contain the flames with a fire extinguisher. With seven minutes left in the third quarter, Fox learned what was happening just outside the locker room doors.

“I heard them start calling my name and I thought, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m going out there with the kickers and the punters, relax, we’ve got 7 minutes and next are a bunch of kids and ours.’ “Manager ran over.” Stand up and say, “There’s a car on fire outside,” Fox said.

Thanks to his day job, Fox knows all too well about fires.

“Suddenly I put on my deputy chief’s hat and start giving orders and directing people. “Hey, we need to put the fire out or we’re going to have a really big problem,” Fox said.

When not referred to as “coach,” Fox is known in the community as the assistant chief of the Columbus Fire Department.

“Things started popping under the hood and people were yelling, ‘Back, back, it’s going to explode,’ and a few seconds later Jerrod was running toward us,” Herschleb said. “Jerrod went into containment mode.”

“It was unreal, it was the first time in over 20 years of coaching football that I had to put out a car fire at halftime,” Fox said.

A few minutes before the start of the third quarter, coaches, managers and players were sent through the halls of the high school to grab any fire extinguishers they could find. Fox said without the help and some lucky timing the outcome would have been much worse.

“If we hadn’t been there, if it had been the first, second or third quarter and everyone was watching the game, there probably would have been four or five cars involved, not just one,” Fox said.

By the time firefighters arrived, the rest of the fire had been extinguished and Fox said he explained what he saw, according to the reports. He then “quickly washed himself and removed all of the chemical extinguishing powder from me and then went back to the sideline midway through the third quarter.”

Fox said when he got back on the field the crowd was “in a frenzy.”

“We had fans yelling at us duel coaches! Firefighters and football coaches, that was kind of cool!” said Fox.

“Thank you to all the coaches, managers and players who walked the halls to find the fire extinguishers so they could bring them to us. And our great students and Columbus fans cheer every week, ‘Let’s light a fire,’ and we too look forward to returning to Camp Randall,” Fox said, laughing and joking about the irony of the chant, followed by, “But this week “It wasn’t that great.”

No one was injured in the fire and Columbus won 49-14 against the Trojans.

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