Midvale Fire Conducts Practice Burn on School Road
Pike and Becky Langer of Midvale appeared before the Midvale City Council regular meeting Monday evening to submit an application for a building permit. It was approved. Three days later, they burned down their house.
The two-story house, right across from the school, was built in1908 and was definitely showing signs of age. Pike said “our house is broken” and he plans to replace it with a manufactured home. Pike grew up just two doors away and remembers being one of the town “biker gang” that could bring their bicycles to Leslie West who lived in the old home. He would fix flat tires, broken chains, or whatever a kid’s bike needed to keep traveling the city streets.
Becky is looking forward to a new home, set on a new secure foundation. The 116 year old house had undependable wiring, crumbling foundation, and suffered from prior remodeling jobs that made her worry. She said she would lay in bed at night wondering “if the house would fall down around me.” It has been a home to many different residents over the years.
Several months ago the Langers offered the house to the fire department to conduct a practice burn. There was a lot of prep work done on the lot around the house to remove dry brush and tree limbs that might catch fire. It is a testament to the skill of the local volunteer firefighters that the neighbor’s shed just feet away has no sign of damage. The wooden fence to the north has no fire marks either, just a bit of damage when the chimney fell down.
Fireman Karson Craig said there were about a dozen firemen at the scene. The goal was to gain experience on interior attack. They set fire four different times in different rooms of the house and were inside to gain experience with heat, smoke and flames. The younger firemen were able to experience the value of wearing their protective gear correctly. Holes were punched in the roof to create a chimney effect which prevents the fire from going sideways. All through the exercise a half-circle water curtain was being sprayed on the neighbor’s shed and the wooden fence to the north had fire hoses trained on it. The house imploded at the end, just as planned.
Karson was pleased with how the whole burn progressed and was especially encouraged that “the younger firefighters learned some things.”
