THE SMALL COMMUNITY OF LORETTO, MINNESOTA, came together yesterday to help out their neighbors that were burned out Tuesday by a fire in their apartment building.
KARE-TV
The century-old, wood frame structure had been the town’s general store for many decades until it was converted into eight apartments. Seven of them were occupied Tuesday when a maintenance worker decided to use an electric heating element to thaw a frozen water pipe in the wall of the building. The heater started the fire that raced through the old structure,eventually bringing the roof in and destroying the entire building.
Because of the severity of the weather which was hovering around the zero-degree F. mark, and the inability of the town water supply to adequately provide enough fire flow, about 20 surrounding fire departments responded on the mutual-aid call. The operation set up a tanker relay and provided enough manpower to rotate the crews every 20 minutes until the fire was out.
The residents took shelter at the Choo Choo Restaurant just down the street, and almost immediately the rest of the townsfolk started pitching in to find clothing, food and cash help for the refugees, including replacing all the lost Christmas gifts that went down with the apartments.
KMSP-TV Ch. 9 has a good video report on the fire and the town’s post-fire activity to help the residents:
Hat tip: Scott A.
Also on FireGeezer…
- Milwaukee Apartment Fire Goes to 4 Alarms – May 11, 2011
- Multiple Rescues in French Apartment Fire – February 6, 2011
- Frigid Firefighting – cont’d. – January 26, 2011
- 7 Rescued in Toulouse – May 2, 2012
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