Legalectric

Yesterday afternoon, things got a little hot in the ‘hood, sirens going, stopping just down the hill and around 7th toward the park. Here’s the story, with great quotes in the running for understatement of the year:

â??A charred caster is not what I had in mind,â? said 22-year-old Jeff Nielsen, referring to one of his expensive instruments.

and

â??This is not cool,â? Nielsen said.

and summing it all up:

â??Iâ??m not trying to jump to conclusions,â? Nielsen said, â??but I think itâ??s pretty safe to assume Iâ??m gonna have to find a new place to live.â?

Here’s the story from the Beagle:

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Electrical short causes fire in local home

Jen Cullen

Fire damaged a home on Seventh Street Thursday, leaving three people temporarily homeless.

Two of the put out residents watched from the street â?? teeth chattering â?? wondering about their guitars.

â??A charred caster is not what I had in mind,â? said 22-year-old Jeff Nielsen, referring to one of his expensive instruments.

All three of the homeâ??s residents â?? including the owner â?? got out of the two-level house safely.

But Nielsen and his friend Nate Hess stood across the street hoping their guitars would be as lucky as they were.

â??This is not cool,â? Nielsen said.

Both men have been renting rooms at the house since August when they enrolled in the guitar repair program at Minnesota State College-Southeast Technicalâ??s Red Wing campus.

Nielsen was leaving for work just after 4 p.m. when he said he noticed smoke billowing from the rear of the home.

The Minneapolis native grabbed Hess and told the homeâ??s owner, Gordon Pecinovsky, about the smoke.

Pecinovsky called 911.

Nielsen said he noticed a â??campfire smellâ? in the house earlier in the day. He thought nothing of it, assuming the aroma was from the fireplace of a nearby neighbor.

What Nielsen was probably smelling, said Fire Marshal Steven Hamilton, was a blaze in a crawl space between the first and second floors.

Hamilton said houseâ??s balloon construction made the fire hard to find.

â??We had to pull the ceilings down to get to the actual flames,â? he said, noting that the house is probably more than 100 years old.

Common in homes built before 1930, balloon construction often plagues fire fighters because it can cause flames to spread through interconnected hidden spaces between a homeâ??s basement and attic.

â??We donâ??t want to take any chances in a home like this,â? Hamilton said.

Fire fighters stayed on the scene for more than two ours making sure the blaze was out.

Hamilton is calling the fire accidental. He said an old fuse box appears to have shorted out, sending flames up a wall in an addition of the home.

The fire marshal estimates damage between $50,000 and $100,000. Not a total loss, he said, because the homeâ??s structure was relatively unharmed.

Fire fighters were able to salvage most of the belongings on the homeâ??s main level, Hamilton said, including Nielsen and Hessâ?? guitars.

A representative from the local chapter of the Red Cross showed up about an hour after the fire began to see if anyone needed help finding a place to stay.

Nielsen said he planned on hanging out with friends. Hess, who is from Madison, was unsure what he was going to do.

â??Iâ??m not trying to jump to conclusions,â? Nielsen said, â??but I think itâ??s pretty safe to assume Iâ??m gonna have to find a new place to live.â?