On the north side of Gillette stands a working memorial to a 36-year-old Campbell County firefighter who on a bitter cold winter night in 1989 responded to an emergency page.
Marietta Kornick (then Mickelson), his wife, and mother of their two children remembers the evening well.
“He and my son, Chad, were on the computer about 10 or 10:30 p.m., and he got the fire call. I had already gone to bed because I had a cold,” she said. “And then the doorbell rang at 2 or 2:30 in the morning and they said they couldn’t find him.
“And then they came back a little later and said that they found his body.”
Alan Mickelson, who served his family as a husband and father, his coal mine employer as a mechanic, and his community as a volunteer firefighter, died when a church roof collapsed on him in Antelope Valley as he tried to put out a fire.
Every time a firefighter, mine worker or trainee enters the facility that bears his name, they are pursuing something his wife said Mickelson was all about while he lived.
“He was very into safety and making sure everybody was trained correctly,” Kornick said.
Campbell County Fire Department Deputy Chief J.R. Fox said the department still has a few members who served alongside Mickelson on the night of his death.
A firefighter practices spraying water in an interior space at the training center named for Alan Mickelson. (Courtesy Campbell County Fire Department) 
Alan Mickelson wears a cap that reflects his training at a fire school. (Courtesy Marietta Kornick) 
The structure where Alan Mickelson was killed was rebuilt in a slightly different configuration. But firefighters said it is roughly the same space. It no longer is owned by the Baptist church that suffered the fire. (Courtesy Google Earth) 
Campbell County firefighters practice their skills at the Alan Mickelson Fire Training Center in Gillette. (Courtesy Campbell County Fire Department) 
Alan Mickelson spent a lot of time volunteering, serving as a coach and as an assistant scoutmaster with a Gillette Boy Scout troop. (Courtesy Marietta Kornick)
Honoring His Sacrifice
“We try our best to honor Alan’s sacrifice,” he said.
The fire department recently recognized its fallen member during National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend.
Fox said the department retains video footage shot from the night that members were called to the Antelope Valley Baptist Church on Antler Drive south of Gillette.
“It was bitter cold, high winds,” he said. “The fire as I understand was burning undetected for quite some time and by the time we were notified a portion of that Antelope Valley Baptist Church was well involved.”
Now retired, Richard Hauber served as an assistant chief of the department in 1989, was home off duty when the page went off. He drove to the church in his personal vehicle.
He said there was fire in a little building off to the side of the church. The doors were plate glass, and he said he could see inside fairly well. He used an axe to break into the front door.
“There was very little fire inside and we started working on what we could see,” he said.
Meanwhile, current Fire Capt. Sam Shafer remembers the call. He had just moved to Gillette the previous spring and joined the department as a volunteer.
Initially at the downtown station where Mickelson also volunteered, Shafer said he had seen him but did not really know him. But in January, because Shafer had moved to a subdivision on Gillette’s south side, he was assigned to a substation not far from the church.
When the tones went out for the fire, Shafer arrived at the substation and joined another firefighter in an older truck and believes they were the first on the scene.
He remembers pulling up near little building which turned out to be a coal storage room that was attached to the church. There was a coal stove and smoke and flames inside.
As other units arrived, he and his partner tried to open siding to pour water inside. And then the fire moved up the roof and was lighting up shingles.
Back then, Shafer said not everyone had radios. He said it was extremely cold and when he did not see success trying to get water into the coal room, he moved to the other side of the church as other engines arrived.
Two-Story Sanctuary
The church included a one-story entry area at the time and then the building segued into a two-story sanctuary.
Hauber said he learned later that the fire was in the attic space and he “wished he had known how long it was in the attic space before we got there.”
As part of the firefighting efforts, Hauber said inside the sanctuary there was no smoke, so they decided to put men on the roof.
Mickelson and another firefighter were on a roof ladder stretched across the roof to its about 40-foot peak. He and a fourth firefighter were on another section of the roof.
“They had a hole cut in the roof probably 4-foot-by-8-foot,” he said. “They were getting ready to punch out the ceiling underneath the roof and the whole thing went down.”
Hauber said it was a partial roof collapse over the sanctuary and happened sometime after they arrived at the church at 10 p.m.
Mickelson’s partner somehow was able to walk out but Mickelson died in the fall.
Kornick said she was told that another firefighter was headed up the roof first, but that her husband told him that he had more experience and then headed up the ladder.
She said her husband fell headfirst while the other firefighter landed on his feet inside the building and rolled.
After the collapse, Shafer said the interior of the church fueled by open roof took off in hot flames.
He remembers the talk about Mickelson and going back into the sanctuary with the chief and others with air packs “crawling in to see if we could locate him.”
“I remember going in and seeing nothing but orange,” he said. “I remember bumping into something and trying to go around it and it turned out it was the piano.”
Alan Mickelson worked as a mechanic for a coal mine in Gillette. (Courtesy Marietta Kornick) 
Alan Mickelson enjoyed spending time with his family. (Courtesy Marietta Kornick) 
As a way to honor Alan Mickelson after his death, Campbell County Fire Department raised funds for a training center to honor his name. (Courtesy Google Earth) 
Alan Mickelson’s grave in Mount Pisgah Cemetery in Gillette, Wyoming. (Courtesy Find A Grave)
Frozen Equipment
He said the search was called off because of the flames and he went to an ambulance for “rehab” due to the cold. His jacket and equipment were frozen solid.
As the firefighting continued and flames were knocked down, firefighters went back inside and were able to locate Mickelson’s body.
Shafer, who has been a paramedic and firefighter for much of his life, said losing a firefighter such as Mickelson or a patient on an EMS call remains difficult — even years later.
“We think about it for the rest of our lives,” he said. “We lose sleep over it. Could I have done something different? Or, if I had done this or that … You critique yourself.”
Hauber, the assistant chief at the scene, said the loss still haunts him.
“Still to this day I (think) was there something I missed or something I could have done different,” he said. “Or something that I didn’t see that could have led to a different outcome. … I have nightmares. It’s still an open sore 35 years later.”
With Mickelson’s loss, Fox said a group of firefighters and fire officers as well as Mickelson’s family came together to start fundraising efforts to create something meaningful to remember him by.
Those efforts resulted in the fire department training center.
“Alan was a big proponent of firefighter certification and training. In the ’80s and early ’90s that was a bit of a culture shift in Wyoming obtaining those certifications,” Fox said. “He was part of the first group in our department to obtain some of those.”
The Center
The center includes a building with three classrooms used for training year-round, a four-story burn building where the department can burn materials and do searches and use its ladder truck and other fire-attack techniques.
The complex also features a couple of homes where firefighters can practice survival techniques as fake smoke is pumped through it and do searches.
In addition to the fire department, local mines, EMS, Wyoming Highway Patrol, and other agencies have used the center for training purposes.
Kornick said at the time of her husband’s death he had the highest certification, Firefighter III, that existed in the state at the time in terms of training. She characterized him as someone who always seemed to put others first.
“He thought a lot about everybody. He would go above and beyond for everybody,” she said. “He was a very strong Christian,” she said. “Of course, he loved his kids and did a lot with his kids.”
A page devoted to Mickelson at the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation also notes that Mickelson had served as an assistant coach on his daughter’s and son’s Little League teams, an umpire in Gillette Little League, an assistant scoutmaster, and a leader in a high-adventure group for older boys.
Kornick said they both were from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and initially moved to Gillette where Mickelson first worked in construction before the mine. He was recruited into the fire department by his construction boss, who also volunteered at the time.
“Everybody liked him, and he always had a smile on his face,” she said.
And while he died 36 years ago in the line of duty as a volunteer firefighter, Alan Mickelson continues saving lives through his namesake training center.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
