BURLINGTON, Iowa — The Burlington Fire Department says it responded to five structure fires in a span of 30 hours over the Holiday Weekend.
Between the morning of Dec. 23 and Dec. 26, Burlington Fire Marshal Mark Crooks says the department responded to 99 service requests, five of which happened in just a little over a day.
"The most common denominator for all of that is obviously the extreme cold weather," Crooks said. "And those calls of service had been everything from EMS to fire related. And so you're dealing with slips, trips and falls, to broken sprinkler piping to structure fires."
But the most shocking of news was that four of the five burning buildings it responded to within 30 hours did not have a working smoke detector.
"That seems to be a common thread. However, you know, in today's day and age, nobody should be living in a house that does not have a working smoke detector."
Crooks says the Burlington Fire Department offers free working smoke detectors to anyone who needs one and will even install it at no charge.
"We work with our local Elks Lodge, as well as the American Red Cross to be able to get the smoke detectors and be able to have this program. So it just does not make sense for anybody to be living in a house that doesn't have a working smoke alarm."
Fire Captain Brandon Howard says he responded to one of the structure fires Saturday morning and arrived on scene within four minutes of receiving the service request, but by then, "the house was I would say about twenty-five to fifty-percent involved with fire showing in the backside."
The Burlington Fire Department would like to remind people of the importance of having a working smoke detector inside their residence.
Watch more news, weather and sports on News 8's YouTube channel