“There have been 29 candle fires in the last six years, and every one of them could have been prevented,” Austin Fire Chief Dan Wilson said.

The 29th candle fire occurred Friday evening at the residence of Natalie Retterath, 608 Seventh St. N.W.

Retterath, 20, and her boyfriend, Ivan Rodriquez Lopez, 24, and Retterath’s son, Alex, 8, all escaped injury in the blaze blamed on five lit candles in a bedroom starting a bed skirt on fire.

Retterath owns the home, which had a $71,000 mortgage on it, according to the fire chief’s inspection of public records in the Mower County Assessor’s office.

Despite being confined to a bedroom, damages are expected to exceed the home’s mortgage.

The fire chief said the Friday night fire was a “textbook example” of the dangers of lit candles and the value of response time: Both by fire victims and firefighters.

The emergency began when Retterath called 9-1-1 and told Austin-Mower County Law Enforcement Center dispatchers “My bedroom’s on fire.”

The call came 8:14 p.m. One minute later, the Austin Fire Department was dispatched to the scene, when an “all call” was ordered summoning all firefighters: Both those on duty at the fire station and others.

The first fire truck, as well as the fire chief, arrived at 8:19 p.m. and the second a minute later. A third arrived later to provide backup.

The fire chief shared diagram’s of the Retterath home and a chart, showing how quickly combustible materials burn and to what temperatures, with reporters Monday morning to illustrate his case about the dangers of unattended lit candles in homes.

“The man smelled smoke and got a fire extinguisher to put out the fire, but it didn’t work,” said Wilson.

“Then, he got a second fire extinguisher, but it didn’t work either.”

While the two adults were attempting to put out the bedroom fire with the non-functioning fire extinguishers, the 8-year-old boy was in the shower unaware.

When firefighters arrived, all three occupants were evacuated from the home and firefighters went to work in the below-zero weather outside and critically high temps inside the house.

According to Wilson, “The fire must have been burning at least two minutes before they called 9-1-1.”

The home-owner closed the bedroom door, confining the smoke and flames to the room, when she prepared to evacuate the residence.

However, the intense flames quickly burned the bedroom door away as firefighters entered the residence and entered the room.

The flames were pushed from the room by fans to allow firefighters to see better to attack the source of the blaze.

“But the smoke was so thick, the firefighters couldn’t see their way to get into the bedroom,” Wilson said. “They were crawling along the floor and even passed right by the bedroom door and found themselves in the kitchen,” the fire chief said. “The smoke was so thick they couldn’t even see the orange glow of the flames.”

There was also the danger posed by combustible materials, including a polyurethane mattress on the bed in the bedroom.

The fire chief estimated the temperature inside the bedroom reached 1800 degrees Fahrenheit at its peak.

The mattress material was giving off hydrogen cyanide gas, making it an even more dangerous situation for the firefighters,” Wilson said.

Finally, firefighters were able to knock down the flames with water and extinguish the blaze.

Once the fire was out, the firefighters ripped apart sheet rock from walls and ceilings and tore up carpeting and woodwork to ensure there was no danger of the fire-restarting.

Response time

The city has recently experienced another controversy over a failed attempt to have the Austin Fire Department unstaffed overnight.

It is now staffed 24/7.

One of the criticisms of an unstaffed fire department — although never proven beyond doubt — was that it could delay the firefighters’ response time to an emergency.

Wilson said the Friday night house fire was an example of how important response time can be.

“It is important,” he said. “Both the response time of the people who live in a house where there’s an emergency and firefighters.”

“There are so many variables in a fire event, that preparation for a fire event, taking fire prevention precautions can make all the difference in the world,” he said.

The Retterath home had one working smoke alarm and one non-working unit, according to the fire chief.

The success of evacuating the home of its occupants, preventing the fire from speeding to other rooms and knocking down the fire, while dealing with toxic fumes belongs to the firefighters inside the burning house.

“This is about our firefighters. This is not about me,” Wilson said.

The emergency was yet another opportunity for the fire chief to remind all the Austin Fire Department has free smoke alarms to install in homes.

He also said the new non-lighted battery-operated scented candles are “far safer than any others” for the obvious reasons.

The Friday night house fire’s estimated damages pushed the city’s to-date total to an estimated $1.6-million from fries blamed on candles in the last six years.

After the firefighters cleared the fire scene and returned to the fire station, they returned once more to the neighborhood to shovel sand on the frozen portion of the city street in front of the Retterath house and nearby driveways where water had deposited and frozen.

An estimated 200 gallons of water was used to surpass the blaze.

The Mower County chapter of the American Red Cross is taking care of temporary housing and other needs for the two adults and 8-year-old boy. “We sincerely appreciate all that the Red Cross does in these times of emergencies,” said the fire chief.