Throughout the winter months, firefighters often see an increase in the number of house fires, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Chief Mark Bradford said.

Some of those fires are worse than others, and the framing method used when the home was built can have a big impact on the severity of a fire, Bradford explained.

Between the 1830s and the mid-1900s, most wooden homes were built using a balloon framing method, Bradford said. With this method, the house’s studs extend the entire height of the home.

“The walls are open from the crawlspace or basement all the way up to the attic,” he said. “You will have faster fire spread in the balloon-type construction than you would the other, and a greater chance of severe damage.”

Around the 1950s, the balloon framing method became outdated and was abandoned for platform framing, where each floor of a home is framed seperately, Bradford explained.

“So if you have a fire, it stops it at that floor level and doesn’t allow that to go up,” he said. “And that’s the way it’s still used today.”

Pat Smith, a home inspector for McKinney Home Inspection, said there isn’t a surefire or easy way of knowing what type of home someone in Douglas County is living in.

“It’s kind of all based on the year the house was built in, the era and who built it, really,” Smith said. “If everything is sheet-rocked over or plastered over, it’s really hard to tell exactly what’s there and whether it’s a balloon frame or a regular stick-built home.”

Because it’s difficult to tell from a home’s exterior how it’s constructed, Bradford said, Lawrence firefighters take extra precautions when they enter any house.

“Normally, we’ll send someone to the attic almost immediately, regardless of where the fire is,” he said. “Because we will have fire extension throughout. In (a balloon frame house), you’re going to have fire spreading vertically and theoretically fairly quickly.”

While there are precautions firefighters can take when they approach a house fire, there is little someone can do if they live in a balloon-framed house, Bradford said. Which is not to say they should panic, he added.

If a homeowner is already renovating a balloon-framed house, then they can place two-by-fours in the open spaces between the floors to act as a fire stop, Bradford said.

Realistically, Bradford added, it’s best for residents to simply be aware of their surroundings and exercise normal fire precautions.