News

New Canaan Fire Marshal: Safety Tips During ‘National Fire Prevention Week’

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Each year more than 2,500 people die in fires, most of them in residential occupancies. 

National Fire Prevention Week is Oct. 6 to 12 this year and the theme is “Not Every Hero Wears a Cape – Plan Your Escape.” Fire service throughout the nation will be working to emphasize fire safety awareness as will the New Canaan Fire Department. Firefighters will be visiting schools throughout town giving demonstrations on how to stay fire safe. Also, school groups will be touring the fire house to learn about how the fire fighters live, train and work. There will also be a display of the history of the New Canaan Fire Company and the fire service in general at the New Canaan Historical Society at 13 Oenoke Ridge, now through the end of the month.

Fred Baker

Three-Alarm Fire on Father Peter’s Lane on Friday 

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Firefighters from New Canaan and surrounding towns responded on Friday afternoon to a three-alarm fire at a Father Peter’s Lane home, officials said. The call of a structure fire at the 2003-built home at 23 Father Peter’s Lane came in at about 3:15 p.m., and arriving units found a fire in the roof of the single-family dwelling, according to Fire Marshal Fred Baker. A second alarm brought mutual aid from companies in Vista and Pound Ridge, N.Y. as well as Norwalk, Stamford and Wilton, Baker said in a press release. As the fire moved toward the attic, a third alarm was called at 3:34 p.m. which brought in additional companies from South Salem, N.Y., Noroton Heights, Georgetown and Ridgefield, Baker said. The fire was declared under control at 5:30 p.m.

No one was injured, though the home’s occupants were in the residence at the time the fire started, Baker said.

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One Injured in Trash Container Fire Downtown

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Firefighters on Tuesday afternoon put out a blaze at a downtown business that injured one person, officials said. At about 1:07 p.m., members of the New Canaan Fire Department responded to the reported structure fire with possible entrapment at 26 Burtis Ave., according to a press release issued by Fire Marshal Fred Baker. There, arriving units found a small fire in a trash container outside the building that had been partially extinguished by the New Canaan Police Department, Baker said. The cause of the fire appears to have been accidental, he said. “Firefighters entered the structure and found one person that had been injured and brought him outside where he was treated by New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance members,” Baker said in the release.

Eileen Pickering

‘It’s Bittersweet’: Career New Canaan Firefighter Jim Pickering Retiring

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Town native Jim Pickering, a 1980 New Canaan High School graduate, recalls the exact day he started as a New Canaan firefighter. 

It was July 3, 1989, and Pickering was 27. “The fire department is a brotherhood,” Pickering told NewCanaanite.com Monday. “I have made some great friendships over the years.” At the end of this month, Pickering will retire as a firefighter after 30 years of service with the New Canaan Fire Department—an agency he was inspired by his own family members to join. “My dad was a volunteer, and my uncle—my dad’s brother—was a career firefighter for the town of New Canaan,” he said.

News

Electrical Fire on Sheridan Road Late Saturday

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Authorities say they’ve been unable as yet to determine the exact cause of an electrical fire in northern New Canaan late Saturday. Firefighters were called to 81 Sheridan Drive on a report of smoke at about 9:50 p.m. on June 24, dispatch records show. There, officials say they encountered a small electrical fire on an exterior wall of the home. Damaged was confined to the “lower part of one stud bay and exterior sheathing and siding in the area the of fire,” Fire Marshal Fred Baker said. No one was hurt by the fire.