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The Morse-Fall Lake Fire Department was dispatched to a structure fire at 5:28 a.m. Monday morning on the Wolf Lake Road.
Upon arrival, the fire department found a chimney fire had spread into the ceiling and wall area behind a wood stove. Fire departments from Eagles Nest, Ely and Breitung were paged for mutual aid assistance for water supply.
The 22x36 structure cabin was a total loss. Firefighters battled temperatures of -35 degrees and were on scene for 4.5 hours.
“Thank you to St. Louis County Public Works for sanding the area,” said Morse-Fall Lake Fire Chief Ted Krueger. “We had set up a water supply at the nearby boat landing and the county sanded the road, driveways and landing road, they were fantastic.”
BABBITT GARAGE FIRE
The Babbitt Fire Department fought a garage fire in bitter-cold temperatures Sunday night.
The department was paged out at 8:52 p.m. to 22 Fern Court for a report of a structure fire. At 8:55 p.m. the parties reported flames through the roof. Arriving on scene at 8:59 p.m. firefighters found a fire in a garage not attached to the house.
The fully involved two-stall garage had motorcycles in the garage, along with a 100 lb. propane cylinder and an oxygen cylinder used for welding.
“In under a minute, water was flowing and cooling the neighbor’s propane tank and the neighbor’s house. The vinyl siding melting and the house was six feet away,” said Babbitt Fire Chief Tony Chamberlin. “The house was pretty close to the garage and the gutters melted off the but there wasn’t a lot of other damage.
The main power feed from the pole to the house burned so firefighters had to contend with a live wire as well.
“And the hydrant in front of the house failed so we had to run water from the end of the block. Ely and Embarrass arrived but the pump on the truck from Embarrass froze when they arrived. Ely helped with providing firefighters,” said Chamberlin.
Also on scene was the Babbitt ambulance for a recovery station for firefighters Power showed up and hooked up the power so the house didn’t freeze. The fire department was on scene for three hours.
“Most of our stuff was there until 10:10 p.m. but we kept a couple of people on scene until the power company could arrive,” said Chamberlin. “Everything actually went pretty well. It was really a big save on both houses.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Chamberlin said firefighters were back at the hall on Monday and spent 2.5 hours reracking the hose that finally thawed.
