By Brett Hambright
Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2007 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
LANCASTER, Pa. — Faulty furnaces and unattended candles are among the culprits that make winter an especially busy time for firefighters.
Local officials said those two fire hazards have helped make this winter season one of the worst in years.
“It’s random; some years are busier than others,” Lancaster city fire Chief Tim Gregg said. “But, countywide, this is one of the busier winters I can remember.”
Statistics, and Gregg’s peers, agree with his sentiment.
After a slow start, about two dozen significant fires - with damages of at least $100,000 - have struck county homes, barns and businesses since Jan. 1.
Those blazes caused a total of more than $5 million in damages and displaced dozens of families.
American Red Cross of Susquehanna Valley provided care for 37 families (105 individuals) displaced by 19 separate fires, spokeswoman Kathy Smyser said.
Trooper Brian Herr, a state fire marshal with 16 years’ experience, said, “It’s been (busy). There have been some large-scale fires.”
Fire “is pretty much random, but commonly there are a few more in the wintertime,” Herr said.
Gregg, a 21-year veteran of the city’s fire department, said overworked heating sources, such as furnaces and space heaters, are much to blame for the surge in fire activity.
“Over the winter, we usually experience some severe fires,” he said. “There are usually issues with heating systems.”
Tom Arnold, a former 20-year member of the city’s fire brigade who is now a deputy coroner, blamed the spate of serious fires on this winter’s wacky weather pattern.
He said cold temperatures cause residents to warm up at all costs - even if it means sacrificing their safety.
“It was different from other years because there was a mild part of winter - then the cold really nailed us,” Arnold said. “People do things they shouldn’t do when it’s cold.”
Winter fires tend to be more severe, local officials said, because they aren’t reported as quickly.
“There is a delayed notification, because buildings are closed up,” Gregg said. “Smoke conditions aren’t as noticeable when windows are closed.”
Arnold agreed: “Some, if spotted earlier, wouldn’t have been as bad. When everything is closed and locked up, (neighbors) don’t hear things.”
Records also indicate this winter’s fire season was one of the deadliest in recent memory.
Two men died in 2007 fires - one in Columbia, the other in Mount Joy - that happened less than three weeks apart.
Two fire-related fatalities were reported in the entire years of 2001, 2004 and 2005, records show. Three people died last year in accidental fires, including one person who was killed a week before the first day of winter.
Earlier this month, Parke Douglas “Doug” Dicely, 52, died in his bedroom when fire burned down his home at 148 Church Ave. in Columbia. Two other row homes were damaged in the March 6 fire, which started when a space heater tipped over in the Dicely home.
Robert Lee Hatfield, 63, died Feb. 14 when a three-alarm blaze burned through nine buildings in Mount Joy’s historic business district on East Main Street.
Seven buildings were destroyed by that fire, the most devastating of the season. Damages surpassed $1 million, investigators estimated, and the Red Cross provided care for 11 displaced families.
Mount Joy Mayor Mary Ginder said the fire was “absolutely devastating for the town and people involved.”
Buddy Hess, assistant chief of Fire Department of Mount Joy, was the commanding officer during that blaze.
“I’ve been in fire service probably 24 years, altogether. That was definitely one of the more extensive fires I’ve been to,” he said. “Each fire has its own characteristics. That one was relentless.”
Last Dec. 15, just five days before the official start of winter, a propane explosion ignited a fire in a Kinzers home that killed 27-year-old Samuel Stoltzfus.
“That’s basically three (deaths) in the past three months,” said Arnold, who responds to the county’s fire-related deaths. “That is a very high amount.”
That said, the death toll could have been much higher. Fire and police officials pulled several county residents from burning structures.
Firefighters at the deadly Columbia blaze rescued Dicely’s wife, Tracey, who was passed out in a first-floor room. She was critically injured and is receiving treatment at Crozer Chester Medical Center.
On Feb. 11, two East Cocalico Township police officers saved an elderly man from his burning home in Brecknock Township.
That Sunday afternoon, officers Josh Sola and Steve Savage arrived at 521 Willow Street to find several neighbors gathered outside the home of 85-year-old Clarence Burkhart.
“They said, ‘There is an old man that lives there, and we’re pretty sure he didn’t get out,’ ” Sola said.
Sola kicked in the front door of the home and the two officers found Burkhart delirious in a basement stairwell.
“He was out of it, and you could tell he had taken in some smoke because his face was black,” Sola said.
Sola carried the man out of his home before firefighters from seven departments were able to bring the blaze under control.
Burkhart suffered smoke inhalation and was burned, but he survived.
A week earlier, city police officers rescued a homeless man from a burning house that was boarded shut in the 400 block of South Duke Street.
That blaze was one of five significant house fires from Feb. 4 to Feb. 11.
Homes in Lancaster city and Conestoga, Mount Joy, Penn and West Hempfield townships sustained more than $1 million in fire damages that week.
The last significant fire of the season may have happened Friday night at Rockvale Square Outlets in East Lampeter Township.
Five stores were damaged, two seriously, when an electrical fire started above a walkway outside Danskin Factory Outlet. Damages exceeded $500,000, investigators said.
That blaze could be the last of the winter fire season, since spring officially arrives Wednesday.
As the final days of winter wind down, local officials are preparing for a new fire season.
Brush fires and other blazes caused by open-air burns are typical in the spring and summer months, according to officials.
“At any given time, unfortunately, you can have a fire,” Hess said. “There are just different types.”