A recent fire in a single family dwelling, started in the basement. The fire did extensive damage to the entire house. At this point, the only thing that I have read is that the fire was determined to be accidental, which says a lot. This takes the intentional component out of this equation, including a child or children playing with fire. I do not know if I can touch on every accidental cause in a basement, but my desire is to get you thinking, especially if your home has a basement. On arrival at this fire, units found heavy fire…

You may read this like the menu for a potluck dinner, but I want to talk about four very different causes that all resulted in damaging fires. Some of these will sound familiar if you have read any of my past articles. The significant piece about these fires was that they all occurred within a few days of each other. By discussing the various causes, it is my hope that my readers will learn from the mistakes of others. The first fire has the most familiar and leading cause of residential fires in America, unattended cooking. Food left on the…

I have not said anything about COVID in quite some time. Fortunately, our decision to meet outside during the summer and fall allowed our church to meet without issue. When the temperatures dropped, we moved back inside. Everything went well, with an occasional hiccup. We, as a family and congregation, made it through Thanksgiving with no issues. We have had an outbreak of COVID within our church family, resulting in the decision to shut down our in-person gatherings for the first three Sundays of January. We really did not know what we were dealing with at the point that we…

I heard some folks talking about a fire that had recently occurred in a fire station, and I thought that I would share a perspective that many do not think about. The bottom line is that it can happen, and does happen more than people know. I am not going to talk about the fire that occurs when a piece of fire apparatus or a piece of power equipment catches fire, while in the building. I also will not be talking about the fire that occurs when a motor seizes up. The fire that I am going to talk about…

My task with this column is to educate our readers about ways to live safe and fruitful lives. Every once in a while, I witness something that prompts me to talk about it, though there may be more important things to write about. In an attempt to maintain my focus, I will tell this story, and then make a sharp turn. It is a snowy Monday morning, and I am headed to the church. I get to the rail crossing on Curtis Street, with the gates down. I am the closest vehicle to the tracks and crossing on the Richmond…

More and more of you are decorating your homes for Christmas earlier and earlier. A big part of those decorations is your Christmas tree, whether live or artificial. Now, do not get me wrong, I am no Scrooge, but I am rather passionate about preventing your house from catching on fire. Although the artificial tree can cause a fire due to an electrical fault, I am going to spend most of my time talking about the live/dead tree that you choose to bring into your home. I called it a live/dead tree because the moment that it was cut, the…

My wife had noticed that the kitchen light seemed a little dimmer than normal. I will cut to the chase and tell you that yesterday, in the torrential rains, the lights, from the kitchen to the back bathroom, were not working well. One example was when you turned the switch on in the front bathroom, one bulb came on very dimly, while the other two bulbs did not come on at all. I called an electrician and he believed that the problem was on the outside of our house. I contacted Dominion, and they sent a technician to check the…

As much as I do not like this time change, our clocks were turned back one hour Sunday morning. The cliche is, Change your clocks, Change your batteries. In other words, for those of you who have battery-operated or battery-backup smoke alarms, it is important to ensure that you have working batteries. The bottom line is that you need to at least check your smoke alarms by pushing the test button. Smoke alarms should be tested monthly. If your smoke alarms have yellowed or are more than 10 years old, then you need to replace them. The ultimate goal is…

One of the last calls that I ran on Truck 12 involved a person who had fallen from a tree stand and died. C-shift had gone to the initial call and we were sent back after shift change, to assist game wardens with their investigation. The tree stand was found to be 33 feet 7 inches off of the ground. The tree stand was a self-climber. It appears that the victim fell while attempting to either remove a coat or put it on. This call is forever engraved in my mind for a number of reasons. In 2002, I fell…

I dislike being reactive in these articles, but it took an apartment fire in Hyde Park Apartments to push me in this direction. I read a news report that stated that seven adults and seven children were displaced by this fire. The video I saw online showed the rear of a building that is two-story on the front and three-story in the rear. From my many years at Fire Station 1, in Chester, the front of each building gives access to a two-story townhouse, while the rear of some of the buildings have a ground-level, rear apartment.   The main…