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Fire Engulfs Munson Township Home
Monday, January 30, 2012
A structure fire in Munson Township destroyed the entire inside of a cottage home Monday afternoon before firefighters were able to put it out, fire officials said.
At 1:16 p.m., a report of a dishwasher on fire at 13364 Rockhaven Road was called into the Munson Fire Department by one of the home’s occupants, said Assistant Fire Chief Mark Lynn.
“I was the first to arrive on the scene. In roughly the four minutes it takes us to get here, I already had flames shooting of the north side of the building,” Lynn said, adding he called the fire in and activated mutual aid.
“I did a 360 around the house. My primary thing was to look for the occupants of the house. I did find two occupants of the house; they were sitting in their car,” he said. “All the crews started coming in. We started an aggressive attack on the house. We did find out this house had some additions put on it, like the family room that’s in the back of the house used to be a garage.”
Lynn said years ago, the homes in that area were cottages.
“So they’ve been added onto a few times. We did find a tongue and groove in the ceilings which made it a little tough for the crews to get in there real good and knock the fire out,” the assistant chief said. “The fire did get up into the attic space.
“Like I said, this house is probably 60 years old. The homeowner has been here for 40 years. The fire just took off and it turned into what we ended up with now.”
The house appears to be a total loss on the inside, Lynn said.
Fire investigative units are currently en route to determine the cause, he added.
Ten fire departments responded including Kirtland, Concord, Munson, Chardon, Hambden, Montville, Russell and Chester.
He added so many departments were called because of the cold weather and needing to rotate firefighters as well as the narrowness of the road, which made it difficult to get equipment in and out efficiently.
