They happen to the best of fire companies; however, rekindles should be few and far between.
One of the cardinal sins in the fire service is to have a rekindle. In the past, this was an automatic "chargeable offense" in my department. My dad would talk about how chiefs would shudder at the mere mention of the word. Today, in our kinder, gentler fire departments, we have grown more lenient toward failing to totally extinguish a fire.
In Toledo, we used to average about four rekindles a year (according to information supplied on the fire reports). Most of these are "no-harm, no-foul" types of rekindles where the ruins cannot be safely overhauled and flareups occur. On occasion, though, we do experience a rekindle in an occupied occupancy in which additional damage occurs. We went though three of these in a relatively short period of time and have instituted a new policy. As usual, we asked around and ended up modifying what a larger Ohio city did.
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