winter house fires.

We had had several home fires in Maine this winter. Some with loss of lives, pets, livestock. At least one in the news every day or two. Multiple reasons. Most thought to have been preventable.
Very hard to fight the fires because fire fighter are having problem gaining access to the facilities.
The snow is very deep, coming every couple days. Difficult to keep up with. Just lost a senior living center with 28 units in it. Thank God, no one killed, but they all are homeless now.

 

Not cool .sad to see.

 

That is sad news. I dread going on fire calls at work more than hit poles most of the time.

 

Exactly, the fires are much more common this time of the year and a lot of times they are heat related causes. We had a fire related fatality in Revere today.

 

We have had two house fires in a neighboring fire district, no loss of life in these. It's a hard time of year to fight fires.

Every one be safe, and check your smoke detectors.

~Nathan

 

Not sure if you guys heard of the mansion fire in Maryland at the end of January. The grandparents and 4 grandchildren all lost their lives due to the grandmother liking to keep her Christmas tree up. The thing that I did not understand is it sounds like they had no smoke alarms in the house. They had some kind of early detection system that then calls you and if you don't answer it calls the fire department. That just doesn't seem safe to me. I feel for the families of those lost.

 

Just curious and not saying we are smarter better or above it happening to us but have any members here had a fire?

 

None here but I keep a few extinguishers around.

 

About 8 or so years ago, my wife and spent a week in Patton Maine with friends. He grew up there, and his family still lives there. Their fire trucks run with no water in them according to him. I've been to plenty of fires with frozen couplings, and packing lines in subzero temps. Never have we ever had to run with the tanks empty. Really makes for an interesting calls.

 

I'm a firefighter. We had a fire about a month ago with the likely cause being a candle.

On another call of interest, I was working last week and we received a call for a CO alarm sounding in the home. On arrival I began checking the home with our CO meter and found high levels of CO in the basement where the HVAC was located. We shut the systems down and ventilated the CO. When we were leaving the homeowner thanked us for saving his life. I looked at him and said, "your CO detector saved your life not us, we just confirmed it was working properly".

Over my career I've had fatal fires, fires where people have been severely burned, fires where firefighters get hurt and so on. Fire will humble you very quickly and trust me you don't want one in your home.

Oh and to answer Greensticks question. I've had two fire's in my home. One was when I was a child my parent's had a chimney fire. No major damage except the chimney was damaged. Second fire was more severe. I was renting an apartment with a buddy. We both were just hired on the FD and at the time we worked the same shift. About 2am the bells tipped for a structure fire at our own apartment. Upon arrival fire was blowing out of the windows for my bedroom. My friend and I stretched a line up the stairs to our second floor apartment and we were met with three rooms of fire. After Extinguishing the fire and the only thing left in my bedroom were mattress springs. Of course the landlord (who was another good friends father) and the insurance company were suspicious of us, can't say I blame them. The insurance company brought in they're own investigators in addition to the local fire marshall to investigate. Turns out the cause was electrical wiring getting wet from the shower which had a leak in the tile. The wiring and wood studs in the wall kept getting wet and energizing which caused pyrolysis of the wood and eventual ignition. That wall is where my bed was. God only know if I was sleeping in that bed vs. the fire station if I would have awoke when the fire started.

Like I said, fire will humble you.

Be safe, check you smoke and CO meters , and get out of the way of fire apparatus cause they might be heading to your loved one's home.

 

fires are terrible ,but also keep in mind any vents you may have as the snow piles up in feet .

 

I have had two vehicle fires. Same vehicle. First was on the way to work in the spring. Managed to put the fire out with water from the ditch. Fuel line rotted/broke on a 78 302" f-150. Had insurance (full) but I still put the fire out. (dumb).
Second time, same truck, was after I had dropped full coverage, of course. Electrical at the firewall while it was in the driveway. I had parked it away from buildings (thankfully) and thats where it waited for me, my bro, and the fire department to show up. No saving it that time.
I also pulled people out of burning vehicles two different times. Once was on a intersection in a town and the other was along a highway....vehicle stopped in front of my house and I could tell right away it was a fire. Lucky I was outside. Both times, people were just fine.
When Dad was a child, his family home burnt. Fireman's nightmare, he ran back into the burning house! Seems all he wanted was to get the alarm clock for his Dad. In those days, the clock was off limits to everyone so the alarm wasn't "re-adjusted" and Gramps might've been late for work was all they could figure. I think my Dad got the seat of his pants lit from that one!!

 

Just had another one the other night. Heavy damage to the house, likely a total loss. Cause appears to be electrical in nature. It sure sucks fighting fires when the air temp is in the teens and the wind is blowing.

 

Sad to see. There have been many fires within a 60 mile radius of here this year. I would say half a dozen or so. I don't remember any lives lost. At least I think and hope I am correct on that.

I have never had a fire where I live before. I have smoke detectors all over my house. Two CO2/smoke combination detectors.

 

I was a fire man for 13 yrs and seen some nasty things. I have photoelectric smoke detectors 2 fire escape ladders an 2co detectors . I could not believe the people that didn't have smoke detectors .so I put an ad in our local paper to put them in free.

 

Had another fire today in a commercial building. Been a busy month for my department (and my shift ).