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We never want to receive a press release with the words “fatal fire” in it. One of those is one too many.
Sadly, there have been four of those already this month.
Three family members, Erik Elmer, Jessica Elmer, and their daughter Rose Elmer, lost their lives in a Nov. 2 house fire in Fort Fairfield. One family member, a minor not named by authorities, survived.
The next day, a fire claimed the life of Joseph Jack in Carmel. Then on Nov. 6, a man was found dead at the scene of a Carroll Plantation home fire, believed to be homeowner Jeffrey Macy. The next day, Payson Viles was found dead in a camper trailer after a fire in Windsor. One other person escaped the Windsor fire with minor injuries.
That was six fire deaths in six days here in Maine. And it brings the total fire deaths to 22 this year across the state. There were 19 deaths in 2022, according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss.
Each of these events are tragedies by themselves. Families, friends, communities and the entire state mourn the losses.
“Clearly folks are devastated because to lose anybody in a fire is tragic, [but] to lose a whole family and leaving a young person behind is just awful,” said Fort Fairfield Town Manager Tim Goff, as reported by Paul Bagnall for the BDN.
And together, happening in such a short time frame, these terrible events should also serve as a collective warning for others about the importance of fire safety and preparation.
We don’t know what caused the fires, or what, if anything, could have been done differently to prevent them. But we do know that there are many safety tips people can follow in general to try to prevent fires, and respond to them should they occur.
October was Fire Prevention Month, and featured a range of efforts to raise awareness and educate people about fire safety. These tips and practices are critical throughout the year.
According to the American Red Cross, top fire safety and prevention tips include having smoke alarms on each level of a home (inside and outside of sleeping areas); checking the batteries of those alarms each month and changing them if they’re not working; having an escape plan and practicing it twice a year; and if a fire does occur, getting out of the home, staying out and calling for help.
“Make sure everything is functioning as it should,” Maine State Fire Marshal Richard McCarthy told BDN reporter Marie Weidmayer. “It sounds basic but people are so busy nowadays that it just gets forgotten.”
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) had a cooking safety campaign as part of Fire Prevention Week in mid-October.
“Cooking fires are the leading cause of home fires and home fire injuries. Unattended cooking is the leading cause of cooking fires and deaths,” according to the NFPA website.
Also according to the NFPA, home heating equipment becomes the leading cause of fires in the months of December, January and February.
Both McCarthy and Bangor Assistant Fire Chief Andrew Emery discussed with Weidmayer how fire departments stress fire safety during the fall as people turn heating appliances back on. Emery said that heating appliances should be checked and serviced every year, and that people should be careful with space heaters. Both he and McCarthy emphasized the importance of working smoke alarms.
As Bagnall reported in Fort Fairfield, the fire department there is now raising funds for smoke detectors for the community. According to an initial report from the fire marshal’s office, there were no working smoke detectors in the home where the three family members died.
In early October, before any of these recent tragic fire deaths, Old Town Fire Captain Adam Martell told News Center Maine about the difficulty and second-guessing that can follow a fire and its devastating impact.
“That’s one of the worst things that we see on our job are the tragedies. And seeing something that could be preventable definitely is heartbreaking,” Martell said. “And knowing that somewhere along the lines they were probably taught the safe ways to do it. And just, you second-guess yourself, you know, why did they do it this way? There’s really no answer and we never find the answers.”
We don’t want any Maine families, or fire departments, to have to do more of this kind of second-guessing after a tragic fire. We hope people across Maine will review and follow the many fire safety and prevention tips available to them. That information might seem theoretical, and even insignificant, until it helps save lives.
