Fire & Rescue

A reminder to have appropriate address signage in case of emergencies

Published

3 years ago

February 25, 2021

Technology changed the world of travel as a GPS can direct drivers to where they need to go, but when it comes to emergency response, fire officials ask homeowners to add extra precaution.

“Technology has played a very good role in that, but we still need to find those house numbers,” La Crosse Fire Department Division Chief Steven Cash said. “A lot of times we can find them on mailboxes, but occasionally we may run into a house that does not have numbers.”

Cash said those instances are few and far between, but minutes can make a huge difference in life-threatening situations.

Having a visible home address is part of the La Crosse Fire Code.

“We do have code enforcement technicians that go through the city, and if they find something that needs to be fixed, or corrected, a lot of times they will reach out to the property owner and get those corrected,” Cash said.

The fire code says address identification characters should contrast with their background. Each character should be at least 4 inches high and 1/2 inch wide.

Kaitlyn Riley

Kaitlyn Riley’s passion for communications started on her family’s dairy farm in Gays Mills, Wis. Wanting to share agriculture’s story, she studied strategic communications and broadcast journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In college, she held officer positions with the Association of Women in Agriculture and Badger Dairy Club while volunteering as a news reporter for the college radio station. She also founded the university’s first agricultural radio talk show, AgChat. In her professional career, Kaitlyn has worked in radio, print and television news doing everything from covering local events to interviewing presidential candidates, and putting back on her barn boots to chat with farmers in the field. Today, Kaitlyn can be seen covering local stories that matter to you in the La Crosse area.