Local firefighters respond to three house fires

Local firefighters responded to three house fires last week.

A home at 451 Hodgson Road was ruined by a blaze on Feb. 9 at about 9:43 p.m. The owners were not home and the neighbor reported the fire, Columbia Falls Fire Chief Rick Hagen said.

The basement, main floor and attic were already burning when firefighters arrived, but they were able to salvage the garage.

Hagen said the cause of the blaze is still under investigation and no one was injured. The Evergreen Fire Department responded with a mutual aid tender. Firefighters were on the scene for about three hours.

Badrock firefighters responded to a house fire at 1545 Highway 206 on Feb. 5 around 12:30 a.m. The fire was blamed on a faulty wood stove. Firefighters from Creston and Columbia Falls responded with mutual aid, and the blaze was contained to the attic and the area around the wood stove, according to Badrock fire chief Kirk Katzenmeyer.

No one was injured, but the house will need repairs and has no electricity, heat or water. The family said they could stay with relatives. Katzenmeyer said the extreme cold — 17 below zero at the time — caused some problems, as the pressure regulators in the firefighters’ portable breathing units kept freezing up.

Columbia Falls firefighters responded to a house fire on Highway 40 near Dillon Road on Feb. 6. Hagen said the blaze was caused by a resident putting hot ashes from a wood stove into a cardboard box and setting it near the entryway. The box caught fire and then spread to the siding on the house.

The call came in at 12:12 p.m., and firefighters were on the scene by 12:19 p.m. The fire caused smoke damage to the house and basement, and firefighters cut holes in the home to put out any fire inside the walls. No one was injured, and the house was saved. Firefighters were back in service shortly after 2 p.m.

Hagen and Katzenmeyer said both fires serve as a reminder to homeowners that wood stoves should be properly installed and ashes properly disposed of in nonflammable containers, such as a metal bucket with a lid, and away from a structure.

Hagen said coals from a stove can stay hot for several days and are often the source of fires in Dumpsters when residents dispose of the ashes in their trash.