Before the Jan. 26 Denham Springs City Council meeting officially began, Mayor Gerard Landry invited Fire Chief Richard Stafford to step forward to address “some unfortunate deaths that we’ve had in the city this past weekend,” along with steps the city is taking to help prevent similar tragedies in the future.
Chief Stafford began by discussing the Wanda Street house fire that claimed the lives of three individuals on Jan. 17: Kirsten Vidrine, Danielle Ricard, and James Garrett. “The house didn’t have a working smoke alarm,” Stafford noted.
Stafford then emphasized details of a grant program that has been in place in Louisiana since 2012, which allows residents to contact their local fire department to receive free smoke alarm installation in their homes.
“All the residents have to do is just call the fire department,” Stafford said. “It’s a simple form you fill out, nothing major, and fire alarms will be installed in your home.”
Since the Wanda Street fire, the Denham Springs Fire Department has installed 47 smoke alarms in local residents’ homes.
The update came just days after another fire occurred on Benton Lane in Denham Springs on the night of Jan. 25, which thankfully resulted in no fatalities. Mayor Landry noted that the incident “could’ve been a disaster.”
Following the update and expressions of appreciation from council members to the fire department, the council moved on to agenda items, quickly approving the minutes from the Jan. 13 meeting.
The council then discussed the emergency condemnation of a property located at 930 Martin Luther King Drive due to fire damage sustained in July. Three bids were received for demolition, with the lowest totaling $5,500, including concrete removal.
The condemnation is being considered an emergency after the homeowner requested a consent demolition of the structure. While three potential heirs have signed the consent demolition form, council attorney Stephanie Hulett explained that “there are additional heirs that we cannot locate,” leaving the council with “two options to move forward.”
“The first is to appoint an absentee attorney to represent those heirs and give their opinion,” Hulett said. “The other is to do an emergency condemnation since this is an emergency fire situation.”
“We had to wait a little while for insurance to get through with the structure,” Hulett added, “and now we’re at the point where we can’t tear it down.”
Mayor Landry said the city is concerned about safety issues at the property. “We’re concerned about children playing on the property unsupervised and getting hurt, so we just decided to go ahead and take this route to get it resolved quickly,” he said.
The council voted unanimously to approve the emergency condemnation.
