Nearly every morning since I first moved here in November, when I get up and watch the local weather & news, I hear about another fire that broke out and the home is destroyed.  Why is there such a problem with fires here?  Dayton? Springfield? Fairborn? etc.

 

Do the other urban cities in Ohio have a lot of problems with fires too?

 

I mean it's nice to wake up and not hear about a murder every day like I used to see, but I can't understand why fires keep happening here.  This isn't California.

 

Can someone shed some light?

 

Wow, I was just thinking this. There seems to be more and more fires in the winter, possibly becuase people are using unsafe methods for heat I assume.

 

In Hamilton, 4 small children, whom I knew personally, died when their apartment caught fire because they had their oven door open for heat. Just a week or so later, another apartment fire on the east side killed a cat, but luckily the family escaped. A month or so ago, a WPA shelter house burned when a couple from Middletown got strannded in Hamilton and started a fire under it for heat. Now, just yesterday, four buildings, including one pretty large 3 story apartment buiding, caught fire and were leveled. Again, thankfully no one was injured.

Wow, I was just thinking this. There seems to be more and more fires in the winter, possibly becuase people are using unsafe methods for heat I assume.

 

You would be correct there Ink.

 

I can't speak for other urban areas in the state, but I can put my opinion in for the city of Cleveland.   Being a firefighter for the City of Cleveland, I can say that Cleveland FD most likely responds to the most structure fires in the state (does NOT include car fires, dumpsters, brush, etc....I am talking structures).  Winter definitely sees a spike in fires due to the fact people seem to come up with interesting(but dangerous) ways to heat their houses...gas grills, ovens, stove tops, even burn barrels.  NOt only that, bt some people even choose to dry their clothes using similar methods.  Oil space heaters and electrical space heaters on overloaded extention cords are also culprits.  I think that there have definitely been a decrease in fires throughout the country due to many cities aggressive fire prevention programs. (fire education, free smoke detector and battery replacements, etc)  Even with such aggressive programs, it is still harder to prevent fires in the "traditional" older parts of the country.  Regarding older Northeastern type cities, there are typically more older wood construction type buildings along with older industrial buildings. Many of these buildings are not up to code when it comes to wiring and suppression systems.  In fact, older buildings are "grandfathered" out of the codes.  For the case of Cleveland, we have the largest concentrated area of poverty stricken population compared to any city in the state.   Combining factors of poverty, lack of education, drugs, and violence...it keeps a fire department busy.  You would be amazed at how many things happen on a daily basis in an urban setting that do NOT make the nightly news, and that includes fires.  It seems only on slow news days, or if there is a major monetary loss or death do fires make the news here in Cleveland.  The city of Cleveland has seperate EMS and Fire Departments (another story in itself!).  The CFD does respond to medical emergencies when needed by EMS.  Last year the CFD responded to over 65,000 emergency calls, roughly 60% being somehow medical related, the other 40% being somehow fire related( I do not have the number of responses for the city's EMS).   The Cleveland fir department counts its calls by incident, by this I mean no matter how many units respond to a call, it is counted as one call(incident).  Some cities give each responding unit its own run number, but in the CFD gives every responding unit to an incident the same run number to THAT incident...in short this means we do not pad our run numbers.   I do not have the exact number of actual structure fires we responded to, but you would be surprised as to how many there actually are.  If anyone is interested, I can get the actual numbers for 2005.  I hope this bit of information was a little helpful.

Another point to consider (as a former TV reporter).... one reason you may be wondering why there are so many fires is that fires are often the lead story on most radio & TV newscasts.... often (also) whether or not they are actually serious or major fires (most are not).

 

I guess what I'm saying here is to consider the source.  TV news in paticular has a tendency to signify the trivial (fires, car crashes, shootings, stabbings. etc) and trivialize the significant (any news of substance).  That's why you see a lot of newscast begin with the anchors getting all grim-faced and serious to announce "breaking news" (the most overused and misleading term in broadcast news).  It's one thing if it's a fire that threatens a whole neighborhood (as in the recent brush fires in Texas and California), or if an arsonist is setting a lot of fires in a particular area.  But most fires are usually not that bad.

 

That said, I agree with what our Cleveland firefighter says about the causes of fires, especially regading older buildings where firecodes either have not kept up or are not grandfathered in.  Actually, there's a good story for some reporter to pursue.  But don't hold your breathe for TV or radio news to do it. If they do, it will either get brief mention or be buried in the second or third segment of the 11 pm news, when you've gone to sleep.

I guess what I'm saying here is to consider the source.  TV news in paticular has a tendency to signify the trivial (fires, car crashes, shootings, stabbings. etc) and trivialize the significant (any news of substance).  That's why you see a lot of newscast begin with the anchors getting all grim-faced and serious to announce "breaking news" (the most overused and misleading term in broadcast news).

 

You have  just perfectly described the local Dayton newscasts.

Dfly, Good point about the local Dayton newscasters.  :clap:  I watch WHIO Channel 7 and their early show newscasters are pretty lame..... James Brown (Yes, that is his name!) and Natasha Williams, I think.  I mostly keep it on for the weather. I always want to know how cold it will be.

 

Whatever the reason for the fire, it's still a sad event especially if it destroys a structure, building, or home of any kind.

 

Thanks for the insight.

I recall that the Chicago TV news always had a lot of fires on it too.  "If it bleeds it leads" is the journo catchphrase for this....or, in this case, if it burns.

 

I agree with the firefighter, too on this. Bad wiring, faulty heaters, or just poor people trying to keep warm whatever way they can, without being able to afford gas or power.

 

In fact I recall a case a few years ago where there was a fire and I think they were going to charge the mother with something (manslaugher?) as her kids died in it?  Her gas or power was cut off and they where using some sort of open flame source or something to keep warm.

 

 

Alot of the fires in Cleveland are set by homeless people breaking in to abandoned buildings for various reasons.  Sometimes they are accidents, sometimes not.  My boss at my last job once kicked someone out of a building we owned, and within a couple of hours that building was burnt up.  Another burnt because a homeless person who was in there was smoking crack, and his crack pipe caught some trash on fire.  Abandoned buildings are always a fire risk because of this kind of crap.

 

Insurance fraud used to be a bigger factor, but I think that it is less likely now than in the 70's and early 80's when nobody thought that anyone was ever going to come back to the city again.  Large sections of Tremont, where Tremont Ridge is now located, were almost completely destroyed by fires set for insurance money, mostly by one single slumlord who hired local thugs to set the fires.

Did they catch him?

they got the bum with the crackpipe, but not the guy who we kicked out of the other building.  Once the fire is out, nobody is willing to pursue it even though it was intentional.  Especially because no one was hurt, and the buidlings were going to be demolished.  Sad but true.