Second vacant home fire in two days under investigation

For the second time this week, Poplar Bluff firefighters were called to the scene of a fire involving a vacant home.

Just before noon Wednesday, a fire was reported at 1408 Grove St., said Chief Ralph Stucker.

When the first truck arrived, firefighters found a “boarded-up house. It had a tremendous amount of smoke pouring out of every corner of it,” Stucker explained.

No visible fire was seen from the outside, he said.

All of the windows and doors, with the exception of one door, were covered up with plywood, Stucker said.

Firefighter Chad Bell, he said, entered through that door and ran “into fire right off the bat when he went in.”

Bell said the smoke was so thick inside the home that he couldn’t see.

The smoke, according to Stucker, had nowhere to go, except maybe through an attic access, because of the plywood covering the doors and windows.

Stucker said it was a “little bit of a challenge” getting the plywood off, so ventilation could be set up at the front and back of the house to “get air into it and the smoke out.”

Until the boards came down, “the smoke went right back out the entrance (firefighters) went in,” Stucker said.

Heavy fire was found in the kitchen and living room areas, said Bell, who estimated 50% of the one-story home had fire in it.

“(The fire) was pretty hot,” said Bell.

Stucker agreed.

“For a small house like that, it was a lot hotter than we were anticipating,” Stucker said. “One of the guys thought he didn’t have his hood up; his ears were burning so bad” through the hood.

Stucker said the home had a wood ceiling consisting of one-by-six-inch planks, which “helped hold in a lot of the heat. It also made it more challenging to pull the ceiling down to get up in it.”

A ceiling like that “puts extra burden on the guys to get through that,” Stucker said.

Most older homes, according to Bell, have such ceilings.

Not only was the home vacant, it had no electricity.

“The power was going to the house, but it was stopped at the meter,” said Stucker, who indicated the cause of the fire is being investigated by the State Fire Marshal’s Office.

“We think it might have more than one area of origin; we don’t know until we start digging it out” and “shoveling debris,” Stucker explained.

While on the scene, Stucker said, officials “found some items” in a wooded area behind the home they believe may be related to the fire.

“We have not went through them yet,” Stucker said.

This is the second fire involving a vacant house being investigated by the State Fire Marshal’s Office this week.

Firefighters responded at 3:43 a.m. Tuesday to a fire at 509 Arthur St.

The house was fully involved upon the fire department’s arrival, and the cause of the fire is unknown, Stucker said.

“There was so much damage,” Stucker explained. “When the guys got there, the rear of the house, two sides of the house and over three-quarters of the roof were consumed.”

The fire also melted the siding on an adjacent house and cracked every window in it,” Stucker said.