Trego's Mountain Ear

by Donna Kallner, The Daily Yonder
August 23, 2024

Affordable rural housing stock is almost as scarce as large animal veterinarians these days. We happen to know one of that rare breed (we call her the Cow Whisperer), and she recently found a house to buy. The price was reasonable for a starter home because it needs some work. It’s not a “Let’s restore a Victorian painted lady” fixer upper, but it needs more than a fresh coat of paint. She knows what to expect.

But if you’ve lived in or tried to renovate an old farmhouse, you can understand the temptation to put a match to it and walk away. There’s a point at which it seems pointless to continue battling mice, jerry-rigged plumbing, and bird and rodent nests near wiring that wouldn’t pass any building code inspection. The shed snake skin I found nestled among my canning jars drove me closer to arson than any of our many domestic encounters with bats.

When we were younger, visitors knew to prepare for nights in our unheated, uninsulated upstairs bedrooms like a winter camping adventure. It’s just the way it was. Then I was in a serious motor vehicle accident. Maneuvering on crutches was hard enough. But the dark, narrow passage from the kitchen to the miniscule bathroom (better than an outhouse but not much)? That really tested my mettle. And that’s after my husband duct-taped open the accordion door so I didn’t have to wrestle it open and closed.

It became clear that aging in place would require big changes. So we did the math on what it would cost to rewire, insulate, and build an addition for a bath/laundry/kitchen that could be plumbed without venting the soil pipe through a kitchen cupboard. The cost was enough that it made more sense to choose new construction on the same property. 

But that left us with the question of what to do about the old house – or as my husband called it, the one that was paid for. We had no interest in dividing the property to sell part, or in renting out the house: Either would have required difficult and costly choices about our well, septic system and electrical service. We didn’t know anyone willing to take on the expense of moving a structure that would need so much work. Or anyone willing to dismantle it and haul away everything, not just the limited materials that could be reused. Letting it stand wasn’t an option for tax, insurance and other reasons: Empty structures can attract meth cookers and people who strip out copper and other materials, and we could still be liable if anyone was injured on our property.

In the end, we did burn it – as a training exercise for local volunteer fire departments. But a lot went into the preparation for that controlled burn in May of 2002.

As a member of my local volunteer fire department, I’ve been on a number of calls where building materials were intentionally burned without that control. In some cases, the responsible party was genuinely surprised that anyone would call 911, and that people can’t just burn or bury anything they want to on their own property in the country. After all, that was a common practice at one time, so they may have known people who did just that and got away with it. But nowadays it takes an Oscar-caliber performance to achieve forgiveness when you didn’t first get permission to burn or bury demolition waste.

That’s because there are health and safety risks associated with disposal of construction and demolition (C&D) materials, and state laws that regulate their disposal. In Wisconsin, you can face fines and penalties if you burn a structure or if there is documented environmental damage caused by waste disposed of on your land. And you may be held liable for environmental cleanup. Burying C&D waste on your land could significantly reduce your property value and make you liable to future landowners. Reduced property value or fulfilling the contingency requirements for cleanup could cost more than simply managing the waste properly to begin with.

For the controlled burn of our old farmhouse in 2002, the first step was a conversation with our volunteer fire chief. He directed us to the Department of Natural Resources for guidelines on our responsibilities. 

We had to have a state-certified inspector come out to examine the structure. He took samples of shingles, siding and ceiling materials, and examined the interior for flooring that might have contained asbestos. Lab results indicated no asbestos, so we were not required to do asbestos abatement. We received a letter attesting to inspection results to give to our fire chief so he could proceed with planning for the burn.

We did not have to remove asphalt shingles, which is required “unless they are considered necessary to the fire practice” (roof venting was one of the training evolutions). We did have to remove furniture, appliances and household items, even if we hadn’t needed them in the new house. I think many people don’t know how much toxic smoke and gas can be released by burning the foams, plastics, adhesives and petroleum products in furnishings.

Our fire chief developed plans for the training and the demolition burn. We identified hazards like the creepy open cistern in the basement. Advance preparations included nailing sheets of OSB over upstairs windows to help minimize airflow during training exercises. We also covered the large picture windows downstairs to help manage flames and heat radiating toward other exposures during the burn. 

In a rural area like ours, there are no nearby fire hydrants, so water is often moved to the scene by what is called a tender relay. On the day of the burn, our local volunteer fire department was joined by several neighboring departments to participate in the training exercises and to assist with the burn. They set up a portable pump in the river by the fire station, less than two miles away, and used three tenders to move water from that fill site to our location. 

First up that day was a roof venting training exercise. Firefighters worked from a roof ladder hooked to the peak, using a specialized saw to cut through roofing materials and rafters. 

The other training evolutions were conducted in upstairs bedrooms. As is true in many old farmhouses, the stairs to those bedrooms were steep and narrow, with irregular step heights and tread depths. Imagine navigating those in full bunker gear, breathing apparatus and face shields while managing a firehouse pressurized from the engine and ready to deliver water to a fire. Now imagine doing that with smoke filling the space.

After putting out several training fires upstairs, the chief called a break for volunteers to eat the lunch my mom and I had prepared for them. During that time, the wind started to pick up. The chief elected to cut a final planned training evolution and conduct the burn before the wind could increase or shift toward our new house. 

Even though you’re not trying to put out a structure fire, it takes a lot of firefighters for a controlled burn. There were firefighters working a hose line to cool the siding on the new house so it wouldn’t be damaged. They set up water curtains to protect our liquid propane tank and another small structure. There was an engine operator pumping water, another on a backup engine, and a fill site boss working with the tender relay drivers. We shouldhave had a few more people on the highway to manage traffic before every Looky-Lou passerby pulled off on the shoulder to watch the fire, thereby blocking access to the driveway for those tender drivers so that we almost ran out of water.

The chief had a plan to burn the old house starting with the single-story kitchen addition on the far side away from the new house. Once that burned, the two-story main structure could collapse toward that and away from our new house. And that’s exactly what happened. Eventually. While I was quietly freaking out at how quickly our bedroom was fully engulfed in flame, others were marveling at how long it took for the walls and central chimney to come down. 

And that’s not all. Without suppression measures, the fire got so hot it melted the glass in those picture windows. There were a couple of floor joists that didn’t burn. But with so much heat and so much air, there was little left by the time the fire was done.

Before that, things got a little exciting when embers from the structure ignited and started a grass fire. Firefighters fought that and kept a minor crown fire in a red pine tree from blowing up. By the end of that day, I was grateful beyond measure to every one of the volunteers who contributed to a successful training and to a successful demolition burn.

Our fire department regularly gets inquiries from people interested in donating a structure for a training burn. Sometimes we don’t hear from them again after they learn it’s not as simple as just tossing a match. But when we do, we get valuable live fire training and a chance to help our community remove a structure that has outlived its usefulness.

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Donna Kallner writes from Langlade County in rural northern Wisconsin.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.