Recent Fires Send Important Safety Messages

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI – Two Christmas fires in Farmington Hills offered “big-picture safety messages,” the city’s fire marshal, Jason Olszewski, said.

Both fires were accidental. The first, which occurred about 8 a.m. on Christmas Eve, was reported by a woman who saw smoke and then flames coming from a home on Middlebelt Road, The Farmington Observer reports.

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The family, which included three small children, had left on a ski trip about 7 a.m., but reportedly left something cooking on the stove.

The home suffered “significant damage,” Olszewski said.

The second fire occurred during the early morning hours of Christmas Day in a rented home on Nottingwood. A couple and their three children — ages 8, 5 and 3 — escaped without injury.

The fire started in a basement-level laundry room. The children’s parents were wrapping Christmas presents in the basement when the mother noticed smoke coming from the laundry room.

Combustible items stored too close to a stove caused the fire, according to fire officials.

Olszewski said the fires offer two important safety reminders — don’t store combustible items near a stove, and make sure homes have working smoke alarms. The home on Nottingwood didn’t have smoke alarms, and if the Roosevelt home did, they weren’t going off while firefighters battled the blaze.

“Those are the big-picture safety messages that come out of situations like this,” Olszewski told the newspaper. “Smoke detectors save lives. We were lucky in this case that no one was hurt.”

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