It was late in the day when it finally happened. A puff of smoke appeared just over the rooftop at the far right side of the house, then another appeared, near the chimney.
Within moments smoke was pouring from the entire roof and flickers of orange flame began appearing in the windows.
A cheer went up from the assembled crowd as the flames grew; soon the roof weakened and began to collapse. A dozen firefighters stood by, cheering along with the crowd.
Huh?
Usually, a home burning to the ground is a tragedy, a disaster, a crime -- or all three. This, however, was a welcomed event that would benefit the homeowners, the fire department, and dozens of families we'd never meet.
What?
OK, maybe a little background is needed here.
Why burn a house down?
The derelict home my clients had purchased wasn't worth much; in fact the only real value was in the property, a sloping lot with several large trees, located in a quiet Midwestern college town.
This was the site they'd chosen for their dream home. Problem was, there was already a house there.
Whenever possible, existing homes should be remodeled, renovated, reused. After all, reusing an existing home is the height of sustainability. But this little home was too far gone from years of neglect -- it wasn't worth saving.
But that didn't mean it couldn't serve a higher purpose (or two).
The owners first contacted the local Habitat For Humanity "ReStore," a discount home improvement store that re-sells new and reusable home improvement building materials. Habitat's volunteers came to the house and picked up cabinets, appliances, doors, windows, hardware, and anything else they could salvage and resell.
Habitat uses the funds from reselling these salvaged items to advance their mission of eliminating substandard housing and creating homeownership.
That's a great way to make use of perfectly good building materials that otherwise might have ended up in a landfill -- and that the owners would have had to pay to haul away and that would have been a benefit to no one.
The next call was to the local fire department, to let them know they were planning on burning the house down. Obviously, they were thrilled! No really, they were -- because the owners offered the house for a training burn. A training burn is a controlled burn, giving the firemen a chance to practice firefighting techniques in a real world scenario.
The fire department arrived after Habitat had taken away everything useful. They put wood pallets and hay bales in each room and burned them one at a time. The exercise lasted all day; they'd burn, put out the fire, and burn again.
They'd invited all the neighbors, who came with lawn chairs and blankets. It was almost like a Fourth of July picnic, only with bigger, hotter fireworks.
It was fascinating to watch the burn – and a sobering reminder of the dangers that firefighters face in service to the community. We were all kept about a hundred feet from the house but even at that distance, the heat from the fire was incredible.
After a full day of training, it was time to burn the house for real. The fire department set one more strategically located fire and let it runs its course. A backhoe stood by and used its bucket to push the house in on itself as it burned, keeping the burning debris within the home's foundation walls.
When the fire ended, little was left but the foundation walls and ashes, saving the owners the cost of demolishing the house and hauling the debris to a landfill.
Before long, a new home rose where the old one had stood, and a new family moved into the neighborhood.
Somewhere, miles away, someone bought some building materials from Habitat For Humanity and helped put many more families into homes they thought they'd never have.
Not every house is a good candidate for a training burn; fire departments are picky about the ones they choose. And of course a house that can be renovated should be. But when it makes sense to burn a house down, the benefits spread throughout your community in ways you might not imagine and may never know about.
And it's a great way to get to know your neighbors:
"Honey, these are the Smiths. They just moved in and they've invited us to their "house-warming" next week!"
VIDEO: Below, watch a controlled burn in Hudson, Wis., during fire department training exercise. About 35 firefighters and rescue personnel took part in the interior fire suppression, and search and rescue training. Video credit: AOL PATCH
Richard Taylor is a residential architect based in Dublin, Ohio and is a contributor to Zillow Blog. Connect with him at http://www.rtastudio.com/index.htm.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of Zillow.
It is a great way to take a tax break and help the community. I am a Professional Firefighter and was an Instructor at the Academy and we used donated houses on a regular basis to train rookies in a realy life scenerio. You cannot duplicate this training in a burn building built for training. Safety is a huge issue and there are guidelines to follow when doing a controlled burn. Good article.
|My son-in-law is a firefighter for our town volunteer fire department so I've been to several Live Burns. This is the only way that I like to watch someone's house or building burning down. It's really fascinating to watch how they do this over and over putting out the fire and relighting it until they get to the finale of letting it burn for the last time. The last Live Burn that I went to was when they burned down a restaurant so another one can be built on the same site. It was so amazing to watch the fire rolling inside of the building like it was a live breathing dragon. I missed the two-day event when they burned down the motel next door to it and that was one that I was also looking forward to watching. There's always a next time but just hope it's an abandoned hotel and not one that's opened for business!
This is ridiculous. I received permission to plant in housing association common area once. They MOWED the flowers. Housing associations really aren't competent at anything.
Thankfully not every state allows this type of often catastrophic "training". "inviting" the neighbors to bring lawn chairs and make some sort of self-worship party for the firefighters is about as unprofessional as I have heard of my well over 30 years as a professional firefighter. Training in today's fire service is done in an admitted sterile specially constructed training building because of untrained, but well-intentioned so-called instructors who have severely burned and killed firefighters doing this very same thing. To affirm my opinion, using wood pallets and hay inside a wooden structure proves to me that all the lessons that should have been learned through the years have fallen on deaf ears by many. There is a reason why this isn't a common practice anymore and it isn't just because of the EPA. Thankfully no one was injured. Regardless of so-called safety precautions there is no positive way to predict fire behavior given so many variables. I suggest those who disagree or even those may be interested to do some internet searches on training fire injuries and fatalities and the NFPA requirements. Search for Lairdsville NY or Cranesville NY or even Baltimore City. Check out the firefighter website "the secret list". Controversial? Perhaps. I wouldn't stamp my approval on such actions.
Properly done, this sort of training and absolutely invaluable. There is positively nothing wrong with this type of training when proper precautions are done and contingincies are accouted for. Been doing it for decades.
This is a great idea. Everyone is happy and people are reminded of hometown heroes in their own community! No offense but its not just the military fighting out there but people in our own towns!
This was really interesting. I never really thought about how firefighters learn about real live fires. This seems like it serves in so many ways. Good article.
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