Crime & Safety

UPDATED: Fire Strikes Twice at Inver Grove Heights Home

Fire crews extinguished the blaze early on Wednesday morning, but the flames reignited, causing a second emergency response.

Hours after fire crews extinguished an overnight blaze at an Inver Grove Heights home, firefighters from three separate departments were called back to the same residence to put out the fire a second time.

The Inver Grove Heights Fire Department, along with firefighters from three other neighboring departments, originally responded late Tuesday night to the house fire — which was located on the 10000 block of Barnes Way. One man suffered burns to his arms and face and was later transported to Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

The firefighters left around 5am this morning, but Inver Grove Heights Fire Chief Judy Thill believes that embers that went undiscovered during the first fire may have caused the flames at the home to rekindle. The Inver Grove Heights Fire Department, along with crews from Eagan and Rosemount, were called back to the scene at 9:30am this morning, after an Xcel Energy crew working on the house heard a "whoosh" and saw flames, Thill said.

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Firefighters used a thermal imager and thoroughly searched for any hot coals after the first fire was extinguished, Thill said, but debris from collapsed structures can create pockets that conceal embers. In this case, Thill believes that wind may have rekindled those embers.

Thill said the homeowner awoke last night to "popping" and "crackling" sounds, and found his garage ablaze. Firefighters are still investigating the cause of the first fire, but the home, Thill said, is a total loss.

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The homeowner and his wife — who was uninjured — were evacuated from the house, which was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived. The first fire, Thill said, consumed the garage and severely damaged adjacent parts of the home. The second fire, Thill believes, started in the roof of the home.

Firefighters' efforts were complicated by the lack fire hydrants in the area, Thill said. Crews brought in several tanker trucks to ferry water from the nearest hydrant nearly three miles away at the Inver Grove Heights City Hall.

"The flames were very high; you could see it from miles away," Thill said of the original fire. "From a distance, I thought it was two-story house…because the flames were so high.”


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