(Spirit Lake)—No injuries were reported last (Mon.) evening in a chimney fire on the west side of West Lake Okoboji. Spirit Lake Fire Chief David Kollasch tells KUOO news firefighters were called to 16620 North Inner Lane shortly after 7:00 p.m…(click here for comment.) “We arrived on the scene about three minutes later and found that there was smoke, not a heavy smoke but a lot of just chimney smoke. We entered the home and extinguished the fire in the chimney. We were on the scene probably close to an hour investigating. The residents were out of the home so noone was hurt.”
Kollasch reminds everyone with woodburning stoves and fireplaces to periodically have their chimneys cleaned…(click here for comment.) “This would be our second chimney fire this year from a woodburning stove. So just as a safety precaution, have them cleaned atleast once a year or maybe twice a year.”
Kollasch says it’s fortunate that the occupants were home at the time. Because of that, he says damage was limited to the chimney itself…(click here for comment.) “I’m assuming they heard the rumble in the chimney, because that’s usually what it does, and they went outside and I’m sure they saw the smoke coming out of the chimney, the heavier smoke, because that’s another sign of a chimney fire, the dark black smoke from the creosote that the wood creates. They tried to extinguish the fire. He had some fire extinguishers and he had it pretty much contained to the chimney, so it wasn’t hard for us to finish what we had to do.”
The Spirit Lake Fire Department was assisted on the scene by the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office.
