More Controlled Burns on the Way

Fire at Full Strength

The Lamar Fire and Ambulance Service decided the quiet, cool weather conditions on Thursday morning, were sufficient for a controlled burn of an abandoned and derelict property.  Solid black smoke began to rise from the house, located between North 7^th and 8^th Streets, just a few yards away from the Lamar Canal.  It’s one of several houses that share a common street in a small enclave on the North Side of town, most of which have been long abandoned.  There are four or five empty houses that are situated next to a small depression, surrounded by several dead elm trees and according to Lamar Fire Chief Jeremy Burkhart, they’re all coming down.

Keeping Burn Under Control

“We got this one started with a mixture of gas and diesel fuel and some straw,” he explained as he and a skeleton crew poured water on the blazing structure, while targeting some adjacent trees and another abandoned house to keep them from igniting from the intense heat.  You notice the significant temperature change when you’re about 100 feet away from the blaze.  There were a minimum of fire trucks and one ambulance at the site, as well as several other firemen west of the house’s backyard on a second street providing fire control.  “We’ve got about ten more of these that will be coming down in the near future,” he said.  Once the fire has consumed the structure, it’ll be cooled off and in several days, bulldozed down to the ground and, depending on how much is left over, may be torched a second time to eliminate debris.  Burkhart said the other house, across the street will be bulldozed into a deep depression to level out the ground once the fire has done its demolition work.

Slated for Future Burn

It’s all part of a general, city-wide clean-up project which will see abandoned houses on both the north and south side of Lamar burned to the ground in hopes that the vacant property could be an inducement for a new construction.

Slated for Future Burn

City Administrator, John Sutherland, explained that last year, there had been some concerns about insurance costs for neighboring houses lots and concerns about asbestos abatement procedures.  He said several weeks ago that the city ordinances pertaining to asbestos had been too strictly interpreted.  “We were working against ourselves when it came to reading the ordinances.  We looked at them very closely a second time and realized that we are able to do this kind of removal and be within our legal parameters on the ordinances,” he said.

Slated for Future Burn

The end result will be more open space within the city and less eyesores blighting area neighborhoods or be used as dump sites for trash and discarded furniture andr appliances.  The cleanup project will also reduce the number of empty houses where drug deals can be conducted.

By Russ Baldwin