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Dickinson couple loses 'everything they had' in late night fire

A couple embraces while looking at the remains of their rented trailer home early Saturday morning in south Dickinson. The couple lost two pets and most of their possessions in the fire, which happened directly behind the Paragon on Villard Street. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press)

A young Dickinson couple is homeless after a late Friday night fire consumed the trailer home they were renting, as well as their two pets and most of their possessions.

“Absolutely everything they had, they lost right here,” Dickinson Fire Chief Bob Sivak said at the scene around 1:15 a.m. Saturday.

The couple, whose names were not provided, lost their Chihuahua dog and a cat in the fire. They were only able to salvage a handful of items left unaffected by the fire.

The trailer was only about 25 feet behind the Paragon bowling alley and sports club off Villard Street. The building was evacuated for a short time until the Dickinson Fire Department contained the blaze.

Sivak said the fire likely started in the front of the trailer, but that it’s difficult to determine the cause.

“There’s nothing to investigate. That’s how bad it is,” he said. “Wires are burned right down to the copper. The walls are down and everything. We could make a guess, but I don’t want to do that because I can’t prove that one way or another.”

Sivak said the couple did not have renter’s insurance, but that the American Red Cross was at the scene and was looking into ways to help them.

Remains of 'construction worker' found in north Dickinson

Investigators stand in an excavation site Friday on 40th Street in north Dickinson, where investigators are exhuming skeletal remains found late Thursday night. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press)

Law enforcement agencies spent much of Friday exhuming the decomposed human remains of an unidentified “apparent construction worker,” discovered late Thursday at a worksite in north Dickinson.

More: Visit The Press site for more photos of the exhumation site.

The body was “relatively intact” and found in the crouched upright position near an underground utility pipeline, according to a statement sent at 8:35 p.m. Friday, according to statements from Dickinson Police Capt. Joe Cianni.

“A positive identification of the body was not possible at the scene due to the extent of the decomposition of the body and the deterioration of the related clothing,” Cianni’s statement read. “Nothing unusual or suspicious was unearthed during the exhumation.”

Phoebe Stubblefield, the forensic science program director at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, supervised the exhumation. The body will be transported to UND for Stubblefield’s forensic medical examination.

Law enforcement agencies began investigating the construction site at the corner of 40th Street East and Fourth Avenue East before 7 a.m. Friday morning, according to reports, as police taped off the area and officers stood watch around the perimeter. The exhumation didn’t wrap up until 7:26 p.m., according to Cianni’s statement.

The remains were discovered near an industrial park and directly east of the Integrated Production Services and Halliburton campuses on 40th Street. The area is north of Lincoln Meadows Apartments.

Multiple calls and messages left for Cianni were not returned.

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Wilson steps down as DHS boys basketball coach

Former Dickinson High boys basketball coach speaks to players in the huddle during a game in this undated Press file photo.

John Wilson said the time is right to turn his focus away from coaching basketball.

Wilson stepped down as Dickinson High’s head boys basketball coach on Thursday after seven seasons, citing family and his health as the primary reasons for the decision.

He leaves the program with a 71-81 overall record.

“I just felt it was time for me and my family to take care of me,” he said.

Wilson endured his share of ups and downs as head coach.

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Dickinson refinery begins producing fuel from Bakken crude oil

Dakota Prairie Refining plant manager Dave Podratz, left, and MDU Resources public relations manager Tim Rasmussen stand outside the gates of the Dickinson, N.D., refinery on Monday after it started producing its first diesel fuel. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press)

RURAL DICKINSON — Dave Podratz, still wearing his hard hat, safety glasses and coveralls, walked into a conference room at Dakota Prairie Refining’s main office building Monday afternoon and sat a small glass jar containing clear liquid on the table.

The jar is soon to become a keepsake. It contains some of the first diesel fuel created from Bakken crude oil at the refinery facility west of Dickinson.

After more than two years of construction and testing, the approximately $425 million refinery — the first greenfield refinery built in the United States since 1976 — began making product over the weekend and is now storing it in preparation for sale.

“It’s been a long process,” said Podratz, the refinery’s plant manager.

Construction on the facility, which is jointly owned and operated by MDU Resources Group and Calumet Specialty Products Partners, began March 26, 2013, with a groundbreaking at the 318-acre site about four miles west of Dickinson.

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Dickinson businesses begin feeling slowdown's effect: Drop in oil prices has led to fewer customers, better employees

Todd Anderson, service manager at T-Rex Conoco in Dickinson, talks to customer Bobby Metz, who came into the shop Wednesday while looking for an oil change. Anderson said business has slowed down along with the drop in oil prices, but said he's somewhat happy to have a reprieve from the chaos of the boom. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press) — Todd Anderson, service manager at T-Rex Conoco in Dickinson, talks to customer Bobby Metz, who came into the shop Wednesday while looking for an oil change. Anderson said business has slowed down along with the drop in oil prices, but said he’s somewhat happy to have a reprieve from the chaos of the boom. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press)

Steve Keinzle noticed a change around the first of the year.

The manager of Mac’s Hardware in north Dickinson said his business catered to many oilfield service companies, both big and small — mostly hot-shot crews and roustabout companies — that would come in and buy everything from tools to flame-retardant gear for employees.

But when the oil prices dropped out, so did much of that business.

“Their budgets went away real fast,” Keinzle said. “And, of course, we felt that effect right away. The traffic is down.”

Many business owners and managers in Dickinson say they’re feeling the effects of the drop in oil prices as much as anyone else. For some businesses, traffic and profits are down. Others report steady customer flow not all that different from a year ago, when oil drilling in western North Dakota was at an all-time high — particularly around Dickinson.
Some say it isn’t all bad. They say they’re happy to have more time to work on projects, improve infrastructure and think ahead instead of worrying about the challenges the oil boom brought them over the past few years.

“It’s a nice reprieve to be able to slow down a little and catch a breath, because once things get going again, (business) will pick up,” said Todd Anderson, service manager at T-Rex Conoco off Third Avenue West in north Dickinson.

Anderson said he’s noticed a definite slowdown in work. Now his crew has time to take walk-in oil changes or fix vehicles without work being scheduled weeks in advance.

“I’d say equivalent to before the oil came,” he said.

On the other side of the building, T-Rex convenience store manager Vicki Nogosek said she is ordering less product than she did in 2014.

“You notice pretty much all day that it has slowed down a lot, just in gas and everything,” Nogosek said.

However, she said there is some good that has come with the slowdown in business.

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