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Monday, January 4, 2010

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Bitter cold hampers firefighting efforts

By MATT ERICKSON

Staff Writer

Firefighters across Crow Wing County were busy this past weekend, fighting not only fires but also the elements.

About 10:20 p.m. Friday night, the Crosslake Fire Department was paged out to a house fire on Sand Pointe Drive on Cross Lake. Crosslake Fire Chief Keith Anderson said the homeowners were staying at the house with friends when someone heard a snap, went outside and saw a glow coming from the roof.

"The fire had already broke through the roof but they were unaware of it," Anderson said.

Steam rose from the Nokasippi River as it exited South Long Lake late Sunday afternoon, evidence of the moving water meeting the frigid temperatures that have hit the Brainerd area the past few days, including a low of 32 degrees below zero on Sunday morning. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey
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Everyone was able to get out of the home without injury, Anderson said. However, the $1 million home was heavily damaged by the fire.

Temperatures fell just shy of 30 degrees below zero late Friday and early Saturday while Crosslake firefighters worked to put out the house fire. Anderson said the cold froze up values and other equipment on fire trucks, making the work much more difficult.

"It was miserable," Anderson said. "Being out there for eight hours was not a good time."

On Saturday morning, a power outage in northern Crow Wing and southern Cass counties was the culprit in a house fire in the Jenkins area. The home, off Crow Wing County Road 145, was destroyed by a fire that started from a wood stove that normally is cooled by an electric fan. When the power went out, the fan stopped working and the stove overheated, Pequot Lakes Fire Chief Tom Nelson said.

"Everything was functioning properly until the power went out," Nelson said. "Then the fan couldn't disappate the heat."

Nelson said fire engines were freezing up in the cold and both Anderson and Nelson said they'd heard of similar issues with equipment freezing up at a fire Sunday in Fifty Lakes. Information was unavailable Sunday night.

The Crosby Fire Department was paged out to two reports of smoke Saturday, one at 11:30 a.m. at the Pine Grove apartments and one at 7:40 p.m. the at Edgewood apartments. Fire Chief Alan Woods said both were false alarms.

With low temperatures expected to stay below zero throughout the week - 19 to 24 degrees below Monday night, 5 to 10 degrees below Tuesday night, 7 to 12 degrees below Wednesday night and 19 to 24 degrees below Thursday night - Nelson reminded homeowners to check their furnances, keep wood and paper away from wood stoves and to install carbon monoxide detectors in each bedroom and on all floors of the house.

"This is the heating season and everything needs to be working properly," Nelson said.

The Crosslake Fire Department also was called for a snowmobiler who went into open water Sunday afternoon in the river channel between Cross and Rush lakes. The snomobiler was able to get out of the water on his own and was uninjured outside of being wet and scared, Anderson said.

MATT ERICKSON may be reached at matt.erickson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5857.

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