By Nancy Huddleston, Editor

Bob Grisim is proof that you can retire from the fire department, but you can’t stop helping people in need.

Grisim, 65, a retired Savage firefighter ,was on his way to work one morning in July when he spotted a big cloud of smoke near Dodd Road and Highway 149.

When he pulled up to the house, he saw other people around who had also stopped to help but didn’t see any fire trucks. When he found out the other folks there had things under control, he turned his attention to the arriving fire trucks and did what he was trained to do as a volunteer firefighter with the Savage Fire Department.

“I know you really need the help when you first get there and there were just a couple of guys on that first truck,” he said. “So I hooked up the hydrant, unrolled the hose and helped the guys pull the hose around from the front to the back of the house. I just did a few odd jobs until the rest of the trucks got there.”

Then he left.

And no one got his name.

Mendota Heights Fire Chief John Maczko said Grisim was there in the first few minutes when “you really need an extra hand.”

In addition to Grisim, four other people stopped to help by alerting a teenager asleep in a downstairs bedroom to the fire and moving cars out of the garage and other items out of harm’s way.

Maczko said it is unusual to have that many people stop to help at a fire. “Those who stopped by were strong individuals and all pitched in and did what they could to help out.

“The house was burning and they made sure to do what they could to minimize the loss of property,” he continued, noting the proximity to Interstate 494 and the neighborhood location along where Dodd Road and Highway 149 come together made it very visible.

Grisim retired from the Savage Fire Department in 1993 after serving 15 years. To him, stopping to help at a fire was no big deal.

When he got to work, he was asked why he smelled of smoke and he told them what he did, without thinking much of it.

“I was just at the right place at the right time,” Grisim said.

But during National Night Out, the woman he told his story to relayed it to firefighters who visited her neighborhood. The next thing Grisim knew, he got a call asking him to come to an August meeting of the Mendota Heights City Council to be recognized with the other people who stopped to help at the fire.

Maczko said the fire was highly unusual and actually started in a flower pot on the deck. The insurance adjustor has listed the “most probable cause as spontaneous combustion.”

The way Maczko explained it, the potting soil contained a material to retain water and was in a high heat area. The hot and humid soil somehow combined with a plastic pot to spontaneously start a fire; which then ignited the deck, which was made of a recycled plastic material. Once the fire started, the plastic melted into a propane gas grill that was not completely turned off, so the fire grew even more.

He explained it as nearly a “perfect storm” of circumstances which led to the unusual fire. Unfortunately, the home was a total loss, as the fire spread quickly from the deck to the house.

Grisim said it was nice to be honored, and added “I told them all I did was pull the hoses,” but “they still wanted to honor me with the others.”

 Nancy Huddleston can be reached at editor@savagepacer.com [2].