A fire in the home, a blaze in the heart

While the Sacred Heart Fire Department is no stranger to thanks-filled gestures, here’s betting a poem from the heavily bearded likes of Ron Hanson was a first.

It probably goes without saying given the aforementioned, but Hanson is a bit of a peculiar one. Approaching sixty, he is that rare kind of bird who has successfully avoided the day-to-day responsibilities driving most males. Opting for the freedom of a frugal life, he is  void a wife, children and any semblance of a standard “nine to five”––not that he has anything against women, kids or capitalism.

If it sounds like the pits, Hanson doesn’t let on. From his “centrally isolated home between Clara City, Sacred Heart, Maynard and Granite Falls,” as he likes to say, he is presumably as content by his lonesome as he appears in social settings. There, you’ll find an exceedingly chipper and engaging fellow––one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet.

In other words, he would’ve been sorely missed had the events during the early morning hours of April 4 not transpired with Hanson rousing to inspect the sound of a circuit  breaker as it heralded the beginning stages of a house fire.

“When I heard the snap and the light went out, I?was just curious,” he remembers. “I?was lucky I?was sleeping light because if I was in deep sleep it eventually would’ve escalated into big dancing flames. I mean, with all of my kindling, old news papers and junk ... it’s just truly amazing that I didn’t die in a house fire and my house burn.”

Hanson said it was about 4:00 a.m. when he located the fuse box by flashlight and found that the main cable wire feeding into the panel board was smoldering, with a good three inches having melted away.

“Like a fool, and well I?didn’t know any better, but I took a little mist bottle thinking I could put it out,” he said. “After the mist bottle didn’t work, I tried my pitcher that I water house plants with. Since then, people have told me: that could’ve killed you––like a hair drier in the bathtub sort of thing.”

Unscathed but also unsuccessful and out of ideas, Hanson soon realized he needed some heavier ammunition. Looking for just the right caliber, he called his friend and fire department member, Dave Hamre, and explained his predicament.

“I called my neighbor a mile to the north and said, I think we only need one good fireman with a really good fire extinguisher. But he was right, he said you need to call 911 because things could have just broken into flames and the house burned down at any minute.”

The type who goes out of his way to avoid being a nuisance, had it not been for the fireman’s advice he may not have reached out to the emergency crews in time. As it was, he took the neighborly advice.

“I can’t believe there were 15 or more fireman from Sacred Heart,” he says still. “I?counted at least fifteen in a row, plus the police and ambulance. To get into those uniforms in the early morning darkness, leaving their wives or bed or whatever it is, that’s awesome,” he said. “I just appreciate all those people ... I asked and was told firemen receive a $2 per diem.”

Catastrophe averted, Hanson found himself left alone to ponder the selflessness of his fellow community members. Inspired and energized by the incident, it was in that moment that he placed the pen to the page and expressed his thanks.

Not quite two months later, Hanson continues to relish in opportunities to share the story, and does so with gusto. The poem, a copy which he intends to give every member of the Sacred Heart Fire Department, he is able to recite going by the poem’s origination point: his heart.

THE HEART?IS?SACRED

    In light sleep at four a.m.

    I heard a snap, the lights went out,

    Room to room with flashlight

    I tried to seek it out.

    The smell of cooking wire

    And wood within the porch

    I perched me on a chair

    Because I’m six feet short

    With water in spray bottle

    I thought I killed the flames

    But no extinguisher could extinguish

    Before the light of day

    I called my favorite neighbor

    Too early in the day

    Yet he and his fire department

    Showed up right away

    More trucks than I expected

    But that’s what saved my house

    With crowbar, chainsaw and the fire hose

    No man was in doubt

    Any time there’s flames around

    They’re the guys you need

    I wish they were paid their worth

    Because they’re worth that much to me.