Wood-burning stove causes mobile home fire

CATALDO — A wood-burning stove/chimney is once again responsible for a structure fire in the Silver Valley — this one claiming the lives of two house cats.

Shoshone County Fire District No. 2 Chief Mark Aamodt reports to the News-Press that fire crews responded to a report of heavy smoke around 3 p.m. Wednesday at a residence located at 28247 Valley View Drive in Cataldo.

The only human occupant of the home was absent when the fire started and was the one who called in the report.

“He was at church and when he came home, he thought it looked awfully dark in there,” Aamodt said. “He opened the door and was greeted by a wall of smoke.”

An off-duty firefighter who lives in Cataldo was the first to respond to the scene on Wednesday and was quickly reinforced by SCFD No. 2 units from Pinehurst and Kellogg.

While fire crews noticed significant amounts of smoke coming from the single-wide mobile home, actual flames were limited to the roof around the fire’s point of origin above the home’s wood stove/chimney.

Based on this information, firefighters made entry quickly and attacked the blaze at its source before it could spread to other parts of the home.

The spread of the fire was also hindered by the material it was slowly burning through in the roof and lining of the structure.

“This wasn’t really a flaming fire, more of a smoldering fire because you had all that insulation,” Aamodt said.

Unfortunately, two of the three house cats that were inside the home at the time of the fire died due to heat and/or lack of oxygen.

Firefighters stayed on scene and conducted mop-up operations until 5:57 p.m.

Even though crews were able to keep the flames from spreading throughout the home, heavy smoke still affected almost everything.

Aamodt believes the cause of the fire to be improper maintenance and operation of the wood stove/chimney.

An initial investigation shows that the wood stove’s chimney may have been exceeding the amount of heat it was designed to handle. As a result, the surrounding wood structure could have been weakened over time and became more and more susceptible to fire damage.

“The main thing here is being careful with solid-fuel, wood-burning equipment,” Aamodt said, “keep up proper operation and maintenance.”

Aamodt also stressed the importance of not opening things up if you are in a similar situation.

“If you find your home with smoke in it like that, people oftentimes try and open a door or window,” he said. “While that makes sense to get the smoke out, the bad thing that it does is intensify the fire.”