Two vistors who were out on the town early Monday morning may have kept a backyard fire from turning into something even more serious.
Justin Kappeler and David Kaiser had walked a friend home and were returning about 3 a.m. to downtown Durango when they were approached by a man at east Seventh Street and East Fourth Avenue.
“We thought he was going to mug us,” Kappeler recalled Monday afternoon. “But he was pointing and said, ‘Does that look like smoke?’”
The pair decided that yes, it actually was smoke – and fire. They told the man to call police and then started to rouse neighbors by pounding on doors along East Fourth Avenue.
Kappeler knocked at 659 East Fourth Ave. where smoke was rising from the rear patio. He helped residents Ken Jones and Marlene Komes pack laptops and jewelry in their car.
Meanwhile, Kaiser entered the backyard of the residence to find a storage shed fully ablaze. Flames were consuming a property line fence and lapping at a house immediately to the north.
“The entire shed was on fire,” Kaiser said. “I could hear explosions.”
The men found a hose but couldn’t locate a water spigot. By that time, it didn’t matter because the heat was too intense to do anything.
Kevin Burke, who lives two doors down from Jones, said he and his girlfriend were awakened by police about 3:15 a.m.
“If anyone knocked earlier, we didn’t hear it,” Burke said. “The police told us it was a mandatory evacuation because there were oxygen tanks near the flames,”
The couple spent the rest of the night in a condo he owns near Main Avenue and 12th Street.
Ken Jones said he was awakened by someone shouting “‘Fire, wake up.’ It was awful nice of them because otherwise we’d have slept through it.”
Kappeler, 25, is a senior majoring in business management at Wayne State University in Detroit. Kaiser, 26, has a degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan. They are visiting their grandparents, Luther and Susan Troen in Trappers Crossing.
After identifying themselves to police, Kaiser and Kappeler walked to Main Avenue and Ninth Street where they’d left their vehicle. It was about 3:40 a.m.
The thanks they got for their good deeds? A $15 parking ticket – parking is prohibited downtown between 2 and 5 a.m.
Karola Hanks, fire marshal for Durango Fire Protection District, said the Jones shed and its contents, which included furniture, were a total loss. The explosions were carbon-dioxide tanks left from Jones’ beer-making days, she said.
The fire, which began at the base of the property line fence to the north, destroyed that fence and the fence of the neighbors to the south.
The biggest financial damage was done to the attic of the house to the north, Hanks said. Kaiser said that from the Jones backyard, he saw flames coming from the upper story of the house.
Hanks said the cause of the fire is under investigation. She is awaiting the arrival of three insurance agents to jointly review evidence.
daler@durangoherald.com
