Help! Our Neighbors are going to burn their house down on purpose.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with burning a house down on purpose. My husband and I recently found out that the people who bought the house next to us bought it with the intent to tear it down and build a completely new house. As you can imagine, we hated to hear that, but what can you do? Now we hear that they plan burn the house down.

We have seen fire trucks and firemen over at the house for the past few nights. We have never seen them during the day, only at night. The house has been empty for the last six months, so the electricity and water were turned off we are guessing. They come at night with flashlights and measure walls. It is very odd to see them in full firefighting gear just walking around measuring things. It is very cold here at night, and visability is definately limited, since they can only use flashlights. We can’t figure out why they don’t do this sort of thing during the day. The scary thought to us is that they may plan on burning it down at night.

We have heard that sometimes when fire departments burn down a house, they use it as a training exercise, giving rookies a chance to have some real life experience in a more controlled enviornment. And sometimes they set up cameras and do different experiments that might help in solving how fires get started. Knowing this, we are afraid their plan might be to practice on putting out fires in the dark.

I plan to call the fire department and ask them if they will tell us what is going on. Our house is not right next to this house, we are separated by about 120 yards of old natural heavily wooded area (by natural I mean that when trees or large branches fall, we just let them stay where they fall. We only clear the dead brush about every 7 years, preferring nature taking its course. We like that lots of wildlife make their homes in the downed trees.) And unlike most every other house in the city made of brick, our house is made of wood. We have a huge wooden deck that wraps around the entire house. So in our mind, our house is connected to the other house by a large amount of kindling.

When I call the fire department, I plan on asking a few specific things, but thought I would ask here first if anyone else has gone through this and might be able to suggest some other questions. Or even if you haven’t been through this, what questions would you want to ask?

What I have thought of so far to ask them is:

Will you let us know when the house is scheduled to be burned down? How much ahead of time will we be notified? How long will access to the private road right in front of the house be blocked? ( The only way for a car to get to our house is on the private road a few yards from the other house)

Will you be doing anything to our house to protect it from blowing hot ashes? Will you do anything to protect our woods from catching on fire?

What are the chances something goes wrong and our house will be in danger? Should we have our important papers, emergency kit, etc handy just in case? Should we move our cars out of the garage. Should we get rid of stored gasoline, etc. that we have?

If for some reason we absolutely can’t be here when the other house is burned down, (the only thing I can think of would be that my husband and I both have elderly mothers that are in bad health, and we might be called out to help them) should we take our dog somewhere else? (If there is any chance that our house could burn also, I would make sure the dog wasn’t at home alone. That question would really be answered earlier if when asking if there is a chance our house could burn as a result. I guess I would be asking that just to let them know we do have animals here.)

What kind of clean up on our property will be needed? Will there be ashes everwhere? Who will be responsible for any clean up?

Another thing that is odd about this is that the existing house was built as close to our property line as the law allowed. And in order for our house’s location to meet the guidelines, we own the property directly in front of this house. Our lot actually looks like the state of Oklahoma. A big square around our house, then a long pan handle that goes directly in front of the other house. It is a strange story why they did this, something about our having to have access should the other neighbors block us from using the shared private road. But the result is we own the strip of property directly in front of this house. There is no way they can do what they want to do without completely destroying the land we actually own.

Yet they have never approached us for any temporary easements. I wonder if the fire department knows that all the land on the right side of the house and the land directly in front of this house belongs to us, not the people who own the house. I don’t want to cause trouble for our new neighbors, but I also don’t think it right that they destroy any of our property without them consulting us. And the house is so close to our property line, I don’t see how this can be avoided.

So I am looking for a tactful way to bring this up to the fire department. I really don’t want to come across as someone who is looking to make trouble. But we really do have some concerns about what may happen to our home. Any suggestions?

My guess is that the fire department will tell us they wouldn’t take this job on if there was any chance of things going wrong, and that our house is safe. I hope that is the case, but I can’t help but think that sometimes things happen you don’t expect, and our house, and our animals will be in danger while this takes place. So if anyone knows of times something like this went wrong, I would like to know about it. I have googled everything I can think of, but found no hits on this situation.

Thanks for any help you can give me. I would love to hear there is no reason for us to be worried, but as it is, we can’t help but think we may be in danger. I would appreciate any insight you all may have for us.

2

Your local fire department is the best source to alleviate your fears.

Call them during business hours.

3

I’m sorry I can’t help with the questions asked, but I will say that damaging a neighbor’s property and possibly burning their house down is much closer to my idea of “making trouble” than voicing concerns about being a victim of same.

4

I didn’t see this on your list of questions but find out (and you ought to get this in writing) who bears the liability if something goes wrong and your house is damaged. Your neighbors? Your homeowner’s insurance? The fire department? 120 yards is a long way but stuff happens.

As far as the easement goes, tell your neighbors and the FD about it - the time to do that is before they start burning and building and so on. Doesn’t have to be a threatening letter, just an FYI that area XYZ belongs to you and you understand that they may be doing something that will impact it and you’d like to know what’s happening. You can be very nice and neighborly while still not letting somebody burn down your trees.

5

Why don’t you walk over there and ask them what they’re doing? It’s adjacent to your property, so you have a right to be concerned. If they’re crossing your property in the process of them doing their measurements, you have a right to demand a straight answer.

But more than likely, you can politely strike up a conversation and they’ll be more than happy to tell you what’s going on.

6

Unless this is a volunteer fire department, I doubt you have anything to worry about.
Think for a moment of the political, fiscal, and PR ramifications of a fire department setting up a practice fire and then losing the house next door in the fire (and the people in it).

They’d have to be excruciatingly stupid to even ponder such a thing unless they had all bases covered. But to quell your many worries, just walk over and ask to speak to the guy in charge while they’re doing their nighttime reconnaissance.

7

Your faith in the aptitude of your civil servants is touching, but as one of the people who has to defend them in court when either (a) they just fuck something up or (b) the stars just align wrong, good karma runs out, and the whole thing goes to shit, IMO the OP’er’s concerns are not unreasonable. But neither are they really compelling, IMO, given the distance between the houses.

Grits, I think you certainly can go over there next time you see them around and innocently say, Hey, we’re the neighbors, can you tell us what’s going on? But you can also call the fire department and ask to speak to someone in administration (probably a captain, or maybe even the chief if it’s a small department) and ask them your questions. I would also suggest you follow up with a letter memorializing both your concerns and the responses you received from whomever you talked to. That way, if something terribly does happen – highly, highly unlikely – you will have documented both your concerns and the fact that you communicated those concerns before any fires were set.

Other than that, I’d want to know when it was going down just so I could watch – it would be kind of cool.

8

You should have an elected representative, county commisioner, superviser, alderman, freeholder, etc. Call their office and explain the circumstances. Be persistant and question the liability issues and property boundries.
I think it’s highly irresponsible that a professional fire dept. would do what you suspect w/o advising the immediate property owners and/or residents.

9

Perhaps all the nocturnal measuring, etc. is to determine whether it’s even feasible to do it on this particular property. I expect they’ll let the neighbourhood know if they decide to do it if only to avoid the unnecessary calls to the FD when (if) the fire is set.

10

Thanks for all the responses. As you can imagine the whole thing is something you don’t expect to happen. The four houses on our street are only 30 years old. We didn’t think that was quite old enough to deserve to be torn down, but others feel differently I guess.

We haven’t talked directly to the firemen at the house because when they are there it has been late at night, and it would be creepy to show up there with flashlights (we have no street lights here, so it is very dark) and talk to them in the dark. That must sound silly, but I am sure a late night, dark, Q and A in the freezing cold, would mean we would forget most of what we wanted to ask. We have been looking for them to come in the daytime so we could talk to them, but for some reason they only come at night. We did feel they would have to let the neighbors know ahead of time, or we all would be calling 911 reporting a fire. So we have thought we have a little time on our side to find out what we need to know.

And this is a volunteer fire department. We receive requests from them on a regular basis for us to volunteer and join them. We do support them with money, but physically neither my husband or I would be good at the scene of a fire. And that does add to our nervousness about the situation. We also know we pay a higher premium for home insurance because we are farther from a fire hydrant than is recommended. But we are hoping since they are doing this on purpose, they will make sure they have the longer hoses, or whatever is needed. I guess I will add that to my list of things to ask.

We do have an elected official for our neighborhood. I might follow up my conversation with the fire department with him. I will add to my list of questions, who is responsible if something does goes wrong. I assumed our insurance would cover the basics, but that never really covers the real cost of what you lose. And I will follow up all conversations in writing. Part of the, “If you have it, you won’t need it,” thought process here.

So I think I will call, and follow up with a letter. I don’t think they would do this if there was much of chance it could go all wrong, but I read enough stories to know it might. I will let them know of the easement issues in case they don’t know. We were surprised to hear the massive project they are undertaking without talking to us first since part of what they plan to do is on our property. Personally I wouldn’t buy a house I planned on tearing down and building a new one, knowing part of the new plan was on someone else’s property, unless I talked to them first. This whole thing is very odd.

Thank again for your help. I will feel better prepared when I call the fire department.

11

I don’t know anything about your locale, but I’ve asked my BIL firefighter similar things about our area. He’s told me that can’t burn down a house but they can use it as practice. By practice, I mean they put full weight dummies in the house and the firefighters have to get in full gear and put on blackout masks and get the dummies back out of the house. They’ll do this on houses that are about to be torn down. They have a place for practice fires, but since we live in an area where the distance between houses is measured in feet and not 100’s of yards, that get’s confined to a concrete building next to the firehouse.

But I know we have some firefighters on the board and I’m sure they’ll chime in shortly.

12

IANALawyer or insurance expert, but I think your own insurance shouldn’t even be an issue here - the fire department should be adequately insured against damaging your property when they deliberately set fire to your neighbour’s house. Ask to see evidence that they are fully covered.

13

You realize that on the night of the fire, you must throw a keg party at which a certain tune from the Talking Heads must be played at least 3.275 jillion times, right?

14

Don’t put the keg on the fire though (read the warning label)

15

I agree with Oakminster, you should have a party that night. Invite your new neighbours over for a House Warming Party.

Enjoy it. Fire departments do this all the time. I’ve watched a couple of test burns and they’re interesting.

16

My local fire department does test burns/demolitions once or twice a year and thet have never had an accident. (That does not mean they never will, but a lot of volunteer departments are quite good.)

I do suggest that you take up the issue of your property line with them ahead of time. (Take several photos of the area where there is an issue from several different viewpoints–without snow, if possible.)

17

Volunteer FF checking in. I’m a rookie myself, and therefore haven’t been to a training burn yet, but I can answer a few questions.

The guys are at the house now measuring, setting up, and most importantly, stripping it of anyting that can be hazardous in a fire. Asbestos pipe lagging is one example.

Your house, and each of the surrounding houses that might be affected, will have a hose team assigned to keep the heat and firebrands from damaging your property. Liability for damage will fall on the department. Cleanup will fall on the department and owner, in a contractually agreed manner. The property owner ultimately has the responsibility to tear down what’s left.

I suggest you call the chief. He can answer most of your questions.

The guys manning the lines will appreciate coffee and donuts on a cold day, too. :wink:

Oh, and just because we’re volunteers doesn’t mean we’re untrained amateurs. Volunteers have the same training schedules and performance standards as the paid guys.

18

:smiley: ROFLMAO :smiley:

19

I would copy your homeowners insurance company, as well.

Personally, I don’t think I’d worry too much. This will be a controlled exercise. Of course things can go wrong, but as long as you get it all in writing with regard to your rights and who’s liable for damage to your digs, I think you’ll be ok. Just dot your Ts and cross your eyes…ya know?

20

I’ve (legally) burned down about a dozen houses in my career for fire service training. Some went very well, and others I’ve attended didn’t go so well. “Uh, yeah, we planned for that to happen…that’s the ticket!” When things did go wrong, it was a direct result of someone not paying attention, or setting up the burn poorly. Or burning a building down that was 15 feet (yes, feet) away from another building. Foolish stuff that any reasonable person could have seen coming a mile away. But I digress.

As others have mentioned, there’s a list as long as your arm of stuff that has to be complied with before a fire department burns a building. There’s safing the house, removing all hazardous materials such as asbestos or asphalt roofing, removing or safing closed containers such as water heaters or heating oil tanks, blocking off fall hazards, strengthening stairways, disconnecting electrical power, etc. If you’ve seen them prepping the house in that manner, then they’re doing a good job, and I wouldn’t worry. If your house is 120 yards away, you’re plenty far enough back to not have any damage.

If, on the other hand, the trucks showed up one night, and five minutes later there was fire venting out the roof, then I would be concerned. It doesn’t sound like that’s happening, though.

Regarding the fire department and your property line, I’d say they probably don’t know about it. If you stood at the street and looked at the property in question, not knowing the actual boundary, would you assume that the house-to-be-burned sits on its own lot? The present owner of the property has to give written permission to the fire department to burn the house (and sign an affadavit that they are not going to try to collect insurance money for having a fire), the department might just assume that the property is one piece. I’d give the chief a call, non-confrontational like, and ask him if he knew. Regardless, if a firefighter got hurt working at the training site, the department’s insurance would cover it. I personally wouldn’t go as far as contacting elected officials, unless I wasn’t satisfied with the fire chief’s responses. Training houses are few and far between, many towns around me won’t let departments burn acquired structures, so its a big deal when we get one. If the elected official(s) seem to think the fire deparment isn’t doing a good job, they usually take away that training opportunity. How you come across to the chief and your politicians really will determine the future training possibilties.

If you want to read the standard that we all use for live fire training, this is it: NFPA 1403. Scroll down the bottom where it says “preview the document” and click through, you can read (but not save or print) the document for free. I direct your attention to Chapter 4, Acquired Structures. Tells everything you need to know.