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Firefighters worked a fire at 2015 Pollard Pike Monday morning. (Photo by Mike Moore/mmoore@Jessaminejournal.com / February 18, 2013) |
Quick thinking by a renter averted total disaster to a home on Pollard Pike after it caught fire Monday morning.
The fire broke out around 9 a.m. at 2015 Pollard Pike when the renter, Eric Sollie, noticed smoke coming from the wood stove area.
“I woke up this morning to go to work, and I thought it was the just the stove puffing, and I got to looking and saw the smoke coming out of the window sill, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher, and went outside and pulled the siding off and verified the fire in the wall, and put it out with the fire extinguisher and waited for the fire department to come,” Sollie said.
Jessamine County Fire Chief Mike Rupard said Sollie’s actions saved the house from more damage.
“ (The occupant) used quite a bit of water and a fire extinguisher to control it before we got here,” Rupard said. “He kept it from getting in the attic, and he’s an old firefighter from New York, and he knew what he was doing. He kept it in check until we got here.”
Rupard said cracks in the chimney caused the fire.
“Apparently, he is burning coal in a wood-burning stove, and coal burns so much hotter and got the chimney much more hotter than normal,” Rupard said. “Plus, the chimney had a bunch of cracks in it, and it hadn’t been serviced in years; it’s an old one.”
Much of the damage was centered around the chimney area and the wall, Rupard said.
“The inside is not bad; (the damage) is in the framework where the cracks were in the chimney between the wood wall and the chimney itself,” the fire chief said. “Basically, embers fell down in there and caught the wood on fire.”
Four people were at home at the time of the blaze, but all escaped without injury.
