The street shoes of firefighters lay scattered on the highway in front of the Clint Richards home Wednesday, left there in haste as they dressed to battle the smoldering fire within the house at 4605 County Road 90 East near Brown’s Corner west of International Falls.
As a canister truck made a second run for water, Lois Richards stood outside her son’s home and heard it deemed a total loss by Falls Fire Chief Jerry Jensen.
Friends and neighbors gathered and watched as the firefighters checked several points in the house for continued burns. There were no injuries and Clint Richards nor his two children were at home at the time the fire started.
Present at the site, a stunned Richards could only reply “It’s a tragedy,” when asked about the loss. Richards said he had no idea why the home burned. “I had everything shut off,” he said.
Fire investigator Bruce Grotberg was on the scene for about four hours Wednesday evening, and judges that the fire was started by a faulty hot water heater, firefighter Wayne Lepper told The Journal Thursday.
Time was likely lost due to the fact that no one was on the property and the fire was called in to 911 by a passerby on a cell phone. But the Falls Fire Department still considers it “a good save,” because many personal things in the building might be saved, Lepper said. And other buildings on the property were unharmed.
“The fire goes until it burns up all the air,” Lepper added, “and then it continues to smolder and do smoke damage. But pictures and things, if they’re sealed inside of drawers and such, might still be good.”
