Tuesday, July 30th at 9:41 a.m., a call came into emergency services for an explosion from a home at the corner of St. Croix Trail and Highway 10 near Point Douglas Park in Denmark Township. When members of the Hastings Fire Department (HFD) arrived on scene six minutes later, they had to find the actual fire. The fire was under control around noon, and the scene was cleared around 3 p.m. Several fire departments and law enforcement agencies also assisted, including Cottage Grove Fire Department and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
“We originally were called to an address on Hwy. 10, which was the caller’s address and they had reported it as being to the north of their residence. So, we had to find it first,” Hastings Assistant Fire Chief (AFC) Chris Paulson shared. “We went up St. Croix Trail a little way and we were able to find the driveway to get back to the house. We did encounter a vehicle in the driveway that we had to back out and then tow that vehicle out of the way in order to get our fire trucks back there. That delayed us getting up to the actual structure for quite a while, and then with it being a long driveway, our water tenders had to back in and pull out, so getting water back there was a little bit of a challenge, too. All in all we overcame those things. Unfortunately, it didn't make much of a difference because it was a total loss before we even got there,” he explained.
Calling the access point a driveway was a bit of a stretch. The driveway was really a two-tire path that was worn through the woods. It was not very wide and looked to be a very minimally maintained access path to the house indicating the resident had an expectation of simplicity and privacy. The narrow access path did prove to add to the complexity of the response.
The call came in as an explosion, but Paulson explained why the call came in that way.
“We were dispatched for an explosion. But looking at the structure and the conditions there, it was not an explosion; it was a fire. There were likely some pressurized vessels, like an LP tank or something else inside the structure that ruptured, and would lead somebody to believe that something exploded,” he said.
With it being a secluded location and the fact that the fire had not yet burned through the roof, no one nearby had seen any smoke to indicate the fire was going first, so to the public, the explosion was the first indication of a problem when the fire had likely been going for quite some time before the vessel popped.
By the time emergency services had arrived, the fire was through the roof and the main part of the house was fully involved, which put the crew into a defensive posture. The only portion of the home that was not involved was the back corner bedroom. That was a space they deemed a survival space in the structure, so they entered there through a window to search for survivors.
“[Not having confirmation that the structure is empty] adds to the stress level quite a bit. When we've got somebody that meets us in the front yard and says everybody's out, we can reevaluate things and not necessarily go into it as aggressively as we would if we don't know that somebody is there. And when you've got two vehicles in the driveway, you have to assume that somebody's home. When there were no vehicles around, and it's the middle of the day during business hours where people are at work, we can kind of assume that nobody's home. Fires in the middle of the night where there's a car in the driveway, if nobody meets us in the front yard, we're assuming somebody's in there. And we're going to be pretty aggressive about searching that house,” he explained.
That aggressiveness does put additional firefighters at risk because their first goal is to protect lives. Thankfully, no one was home but the difficult side of that was it took a decent amount of time to reach the homeowner to confirm that.
“We didn't know at first, just because there was nobody on the scene. So, we had to assume that somebody was in there, especially with the mindset initially that it was an explosion. You think that there's going to be a victim inside, but deputies were able to locate the property owner and he was not at home,” AFC Paulson added.
Once they knew the dwelling was clear, the approach changed.
“When there's nothing to save, we take a more defensive posture and put water on it from the outside. When we've got a rescue to perform and know that there could be somebody in there, then things are a lot different. Then we are a lot more aggressive and obviously take more risks when there's someone to save. When there's nothing to save or we know that a space isn't survivable, then we're not going to put firefighters at risk to try to save something that's already lost,” he said.
Fortunately, this year has been a very wet year from a weather point of view. That meant the area surrounding the home was very green, which makes protecting it much easier.
“If this happened in late September, it might be a different story. We could have had a pretty sizable grass fire along with this fire, and that happens quite often,” said Paulson. “It just makes the situation that much bigger; you've got more aspects to worry about, you have the house fire, then you have a grass fire that's maybe being spread by the wind, and it just makes things that much more complicated requires that much more resources.”
Paulson said that they had resources from all over the area assisting with this event including Prescott, Lower St. Croix Valley, Cottage Grove, St. Paul Park and Rosemount. Had the call come in as a structure fire and not an explosion, Prescott would have been the first responding unit on scene, but Hastings answered the call first with the report of an explosion. Allina EMS provided an ambulance on standby.
There were no true injuries reported during the event, but two firefighters were treated locally for heat exhaustion and released the same day. The temp hit 85 at the peak of the firefighting efforts, combined with the heat of the fire, the risk of heat related illness does increase. Thankfully, both firefighters recognized the issue, and they were treated quickly before it became serious.
The cause of the fire has not been determined yet. In many cases of residential fires, the cause of the fire is much more important to insurance than it is to the fire department. The department is a great asset to assist with the investigation, but they do so in conjunction with insurance companies so that the scene is as true as it can be for both the fire department and the insurance company.
One tip that Paulson had for families is to have a fire readiness plan on where to meet if there is a fire in your home.
“If people are home, one thing that we always stress with our fire prevention messages is have a family meeting place. So, if you do have to evacuate your house, you have a big tree or a mailbox or something in your front yard, where everybody goes, and everybody knows where to go so that when the fire department gets there, we can say is everybody out? And you can say, yes, we're all right here.”