Have you ever watched a video of a catastrophic fire and said to yourself, "Could our fire department manage such a large incident? We’re just a small rural fire department in Smalltown USA." Well, it does happen and we will review three significant multi-alarm fires in three small communities that never thought this could happen to them. This presentation will focus on the challenges faced by those incident commanders and first-arriving units as they responded to multiple buildings on fire with rapid fire growth, at three different times of the year (two of the three incidents had maydays that were quickly mitigated with no injuries).All three incidents grew to multi-jurisdictional incidents, creating additional operational challenges from communications, accountability and operational procedures. The presentation will evaluate each incident based on how, if confronted with a similar incident in your community, you can develop an operational plan that will bring successful outcomes prior to your big day