In this issue:
- SFM: Remembering heartbreaking fatal fires
- Commissioner's Corner: Don't wait when a loved one goes missing – file a report right away
- Featured social media
 St. Cloud firefighter Deelia Guite and her department put out a fire.
St. Cloud firefighter Deelia Guite was a volunteer for Sauk Rapids Fire Department in January 2023 when her crew was called to an apartment fire in Sartell. It was her first time responding to a deadly fire.
That family and fire call remain on her mind two years later. The deaths were two of 56 fire casualties reported to our State Fire Marshal (SFM) division in 2023.
Preliminary data shows at least 71 people died around the state in fires last year.
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62 percent were in one- or two- family homes.
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65 percent were outside the Twin Cities Metro Area.
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Most deaths happened during colder months.
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71 percent of the fatalities were men.
 A vehicle sits abandoned in a parking garage.
Every hour is critical in a missing person’s investigation, especially the first 48 to 72 hours after someone has disappeared.
Yet it’s a familiar scene in movies and television: someone doesn’t make it home for dinner, there’s a flurry of phone calls but no one knows where they might be. Cue the tense countdown until the 24-hour mark to file a police report.
In Minnesota, that well-known narrative is a dangerous myth.
You can — and should — file a police report right away when a loved one is missing. Police are required to take the report.
Minnesota lawmakers enacted Brandon’s Law in 2009, which requires law enforcement to take a missing person’s report without delay when someone of any age goes missing under dangerous circumstances.
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