By Chandra Johnson
The Taos News
TAOS, N.M. — Taos firefighters clocked some major time last week between responding to some 22 calls of fires while also aiding in restoring gas service to Taoseños.
Taos Volunteer Fire Chief Jim Fambro and Administrative Fire Chief Eric Montoya told The Taos News Wednesday (Feb. 16) that both volunteers and the eight paid firefighters worked around the clock doing everything from shutting off gas meters, keeping sprinkler systems from freezing and putting out structure fires to searching homes and businesses for frozen bodies.
It is estimated that the department put in nearly 1,400 man-hours over the six-day period.
“We were gas company men during the day and then these fires would come up in the middle of the night,” Fambro said. “It got to a point where we had to tell guys to go home and not come back because they were asleep on their feet.”
Fambro said that it was then up to Taos firefighters to inspect some 79 residences that New Mexico Gas Co. said were “unaccounted for,” meaning that the residents were either not home to have their gas restored — or possibly frozen to death.
“We didn’t find anyone, thank God,” Fambro said of the search. “I don’t know how you’d qualify it — our week in hell.”
The department had to deal with the trailer fire that killed an unidentified man in Ranchos de Taos, Feb. 9 after he was likely using flammable liquids to make a fire in his fireplace. (For more coverage, see Page A11.)
Fambro said the gas outage forced Taoseños to use their fireplaces and wood stoves to keep warm, which can be a major problem when kiva-style fireplaces are not up to code.
And while Montoya said that structure fires started from kiva fireplaces were a problem every winter for the department, the outage exacerbated the issue.
Nine of the 22 calls for fires over the six-day period without natural gas were due to kiva fireplaces being improperly used or that were not properly insulated.
“In some cases, they’re attaching the flew to the wood of the house,” Fambro said.
Fambro said the fire department had estimated property damage to Taoseños to be between $12,000 to $20,000 for each call the department handled — or a quarter million dollars.
“The potential property [value] loss is five times that,” Fambro said. “The amazing thing is that we didn’t have any injuries to firefighters and only one case of smoke inhalation.”
Property owner Yavanne Jaramillo agreed with Fambro’s numbers. Jaramillo’s rental property in Taos was one of the fires that spread from a kiva fireplace.
Because the kiva fireplace didn’t have proper clearance, firefighters had to go through the standard procedure for ensuring that the walls surrounding the fireplace don’t smolder and keep the fire going. That means basically tearing apart the walls and ceiling or roof around the fireplace to search for sparks and embers.
Jaramillo estimates that the damage to her property is at least $20,000.
Firefighter and assistant volunteer chief Gerard Martínez said that the problem with kiva fireplaces is that they’re often added to a home for aesthetics rather than functionality — after the home has been built and inspected.
“Once the building inspector leaves, they’re not coming back,” Martínez said. “It’s worth it to know what’s behind the fireplace.”
Martínez said that for a kiva fireplace to be safe, there should be adequate clearance behind the fireplace and some sort of insulating material — such as cinderblock or adobe — between the fireplace and the wall of the house.
The problem is, most people don’t know if their kiva fireplace is up to code, Martínez said.
Now that the hard work is done, the fire department is tallying costs for the town.
Town of Taos Finance Director Marietta Fambro said Wednesday that the town is taking the estimates and preparing to submit them to the state for possible reimbursement.
“Just to take one of those trucks out of the bay is about $300,” Marietta Fambro said. “We estimate a cost of $22,500 and that may go up depending on what the state approves or doesn’t approve for reimbursement.”
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