Washington County has new fire-suppression devices, and one already helped save a St. Paul Park home

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
Updated ·7 min read

Sgt. Bill Harrell was one of five Washington County Sheriff’s Office sergeants who volunteered in February to keep a recently donated fire-suppression tool in his squad car.

Four days after receiving the device, Harrell was called to the scene of a fire in St. Paul Park and used the device to help contain a kitchen fire in a two-story house. After locating the source of the Feb. 19 fire, Harrell pulled the device’s two pins and threw it in a side door that had been pried open.

The device sprays an aerosol mixture that helps suffocate the flames. “You have eight seconds before it detonates,” he said. “I pulled the pins, threw it in the room and shut the door. You have to seal up the room so no oxygen gets in.”

The device helped “slow the fire down quite a bit and kept it from getting worse,” St. Paul Park Fire Chief Michael Kramer said at a news conference on Tuesday morning.

It is believed to be the first time one of the devices has been used at a fire in Minnesota, Washington County Sheriff Dan Starry said.

Harrell, who is stationed in Newport, beat the city’s volunteer on-call fire department to the scene in the 1100 block of Dayton Avenue.

“I’ve been to numerous house fires and structure fires through the years where I haven’t been able to do much,” he said. “We have fire extinguishers in our cars, but they have limited capabilities. It was gratifying to go to a fire and actually be able to do something productive – and really feel like I was making a difference.”

Donated by Masonic Lodge

The device – donated by St. John’s Masonic Lodge No. 1 of Stillwater – releases nontoxic aerosols into the air that can knock down a fire up to approximately 5,300 square feet and can “lower the temperature of a fire by about 1,000 degrees in less than a minute,” said Matthew Stepaniak, a member of the St. John’s Masonic Lodge.

The devices, which cost about $1,000 each, can dramatically reduce fire and water damage in structures, Stepaniak said. In addition, the aerosols that are released are safe for humans and pets, and can be easily cleaned up after a fire.

The owners of the house, Mark and Lin Gisselquist, said the device helped save the “shell” of their house. “They are going to have to take it all the way down to the studs and start over,” Lin Gisselquist said. “They will save what they can.”

When fire officials arrived on the scene, they were able to get into the house and rescue the two dogs – Kota and Cooper – that were in the house. Kota, a yellow Lab, belongs to the Gisselquists; Cooper, a Golden Doodle, belongs to friends who were on vacation. Both dogs had to be treated at an animal emergency clinic in Oakdale; the family’s goldfish, Bacon and Eggs, perished in the fire, she said.

Mark Gisselquist, who works across the street at Pullman Elementary School, was the one to initially spot the smoke coming from the roof of their house. Gisselquist, who works as the school’s day foreman, was pre-soaking the school’s entryway mats and getting the carpet cleaner ready “when I just happened to look out the front doors,” he said.

“I always do that. I’m always watching the neighborhood and my house. I looked at my house like I normally do, and I just happened to see some dark smoke out of the wind turbine on the roof.”

Gisselquist at first thought that a next-door neighbor might be having a bonfire “because he sometimes does that,” he said.

“But then he thought, ‘Wait, it’s February, and it’s 9 in the morning,’” Lin Gisselquist said. “It just didn’t make sense to him.”

Gisselquist called 911 as he ran across the street. “I ran out without my sweatshirt and without my keys,” he said. “My adrenaline was pumping.”

Fortunately, Lin Gisselquist and the couple’s daughter, Kate, 14, were at a dentist appointment and a hair appointment in Eagan that morning.

An official cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but Mark Gisselquist believes a light switch in the kitchen that “either came loose or was faulty” is to blame.

‘Overwhelmed by kindness’

The Gisselquists, who have lived in the two-bedroom house since 1996, stayed at two different Marriott hotels in Woodbury before moving into a rental unit in Woodbury on Monday. Cleaners are determining what, if anything, can be salvaged from the house, Lin Gisselquist said.

The couple has insurance, but it does not cover everything, Lin Gisselquist said. “There are the emergency veterinarian bills and several other large and unexpected expenses during this process,” she said.

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The Gisselquists’ church, Newport Lutheran Church, is holding a pancake breakfast after church on Palm Sunday as a fundraiser. A family member has set up a GoFundMe online fundraiser. Donations also can be left for the Gisselquists at City and County Credit Union in Woodbury.

“To be honest with you, we are overwhelmed by the kindness and love we’ve been shown since this incident,” Lin Gisselquist said. “We are used to being the helpers and the givers, not the receivers. Our pastor told us, ‘If it were somebody else, you would be the first in line to help. Now it’s your turn.’ She made me cry. I hate when she does that.”

Part of the money raised will be used to donate a fire-suppression system – like the one used on their house – to the sheriff’s office, she said.

“Farmers Insurance will only reimburse up to $500 for any equipment used by the fire department,” she said. “Once we have our basic needs, we want to make sure another family has an opportunity to use this device … so they have something to go back to.”

‘Everything worked’

In a letter to Harrell after the fire, Kramer thanked him for his assistance. “Without the donated device and your quick thinking, we may have had a different outcome that morning,” Kramer wrote.

The device slowed the progression of the fire and “kept it to the room of source … allowing us to rescue the two pet dogs from the basement,” he wrote.

“Everything worked,” Kramer said in an interview last week. “It got called in at the right time. If there were already flames coming out of the structure, it would have slowed it down some, but it still would have been probably quite a bit of loss.”

Kramer said the more first responders who have equipment like fire-suppression devices in their vehicles, the better.

“It helps,” he said. “We’re all in the same business. If you want to put a simple term to it, it’s customer service. If they can get in there and save some property and slow things down, yeah, without harming themselves or putting themselves in danger, it really helps.”

St. John’s Masonic Lodge No. 1, which was founded in 1854, is “committed to ensuring that we make our community a better and safer place now and in the future,” Stepaniak said. “Hopefully this will be one more thing (first responders) can use to keep our neighbors safe here in Washington County.”

The devices, which have a 15-year shelf life, can sustain temperatures down to 55 degrees below zero. They are manufactured by Fire Suppression Solutions in Slinger, Wis.

The lodge has donated 24 devices to public-safety departments in Washington County, including 14 with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office; three with the Stillwater Police Department; three with the Oak Park Heights Police Department; two with the Bayport Police Department; one with the Stillwater Fire Department and one with the Bayport Fire Department.

That number includes replacing the one that was deployed on Feb. 19, Stepaniak said.

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The devices were paid for by donations from members of the St. John’s Masonic Lodge and Macalester Masonic Lodge in St. Paul and by a grant from the Stillwater Sunrise Rotary Club, along with matching grants provided through the Minnesota Masonic Charities and Grand Lodge of Minnesota, Stepaniak said.

The Masons plan to donate 80 to 100 of the devices to public-safety departments in the county by the end of the year, he said.

The Masons, which have donated more than 115 of the devices around the state, are using the devices to help spread the word about their organization, said Dayton Berg, the Masons’ Grand Master of Minnesota.

“I thought it would be a good way to introduce the Masons back into Minnesota,” Berg said. “We want to recruit new members.”