{"id":37716,"date":"2022-10-21T23:11:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T05:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-sheriff-officers-pants-catch-fire-causing-severe-burns\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:39:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:39:47","slug":"la-plata-county-sheriff-officers-pants-catch-fire-causing-severe-burns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-sheriff-officers-pants-catch-fire-causing-severe-burns\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County Sheriff officer\u2019s pants catch fire, causing severe burns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office was searching for a fugitive Tuesday in the Gem Village area. The suspect was apparently caught in the 39000 block of U.S. Highway 160, in the Gem Village area. The Sheriff\u2019s Office did not return calls or issue any public statements.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gerald \u201cJerry\u201d Little could never have imagined how his day would go after he finished squeezing off a few rounds at the Durango Gun Club on Sept. 27 as part of firearms training for his job with the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office. All was business as usual when he returned to his office and sat down at his desk and went to work.<\/p>\n

Then one of his pant legs erupted in flames and suddenly his pants were on fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry frantically tried to put the fire out with his hands, burning all of his fingers in the process,\u201d La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith wrote in an email to Don Mapel, president of the Hundred Club in Durango. The email was later shared with The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Little was taken to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital where he was treated for his burns. After doctors consulted with a burn center in Denver, it was recommended that Little receive further treatment in Denver. He was admitted \u201cto the hospital in Denver\u201d on Sept. 28 and underwent skin-graft surgery Sept. 30. He was \u201cexpected to be released (Oct. 5), but doctors requested he stay within 15 minutes of the hospital for the following two to three weeks,\u201d according to the sheriff\u2019s email.<\/p>\n

Efforts to reach Smith for comment were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

The suspected cause of the fire is a spare lithium battery for a \u201cpersonal device\u201d in Little\u2019s cargo pocket. When he returned from the gun range to work, he had the spare, along with his cellphone and \u201cfive or six loose rounds of ammunition\u201d in his pocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not sure why the lithium battery overheated, but when it did it became a flaming flare in his pocket,\u201d the sheriff wrote. \u201cThe fire ignited Jerry\u2019s pants on fire and was hot enough to explode two of the loose rounds in his pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sheriff\u2019s email asked if the \u201ctremendous expense\u201d Little and his wife faced because of the accident and the necessitated stay at a hotel in the Denver area, was something the Hundred Club could help with. The Durango Hundred Club is a nonprofit that supports La Plata County first responders and their families in times of crisis.<\/p>\n

Mapel said the Hundred Club made a donation to the officer.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office filed the paperwork for a workman\u2019s compensation claim, but were unsure the accident would be covered.<\/p>\n

Several efforts by The Durango Herald<\/em> seeking additional details about the extent of Little\u2019s injuries and his recovery, the type of lithium battery that caught fire, or where Little received treatment in Denver were unsuccessful. Efforts to reach Little were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s Office spokesman Chris Burke said only that Little is a case officer for pretrial services, a branch of the LPCSO detentions division. He said little didn\u2019t want to speak about the incident, but would be returning to work in November. Burke also thanked the Durango Hundred Club.<\/p>\n

gjaros@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lithium battery may have been the culprit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[350,28,1194],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-sheriffs-office"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83762,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37716\/revisions\/83762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37716"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}