(Spirit Lake)– Fire has destroyed a house on Little Spirit Lake. Spirit Lake Fire Chief Pat Daly tells KUOO news they were called to 10185 237th Avenue around 5:30 pm Sunday…
“We had reports that we had a house fully engulfed. When we got there, we did. The fire was through the roof already. We got tankers going from Milford, Arnolds Park-Okoboji, and Lake Park and we battled it, we were up there for like five hours.”
Daly says the vinyl siding on a house to the north was starting to melt but didn’t catch fire while a house to the south was steaming but also didn’t catch on fire. He says crews were called back to the scene later to put out some trees and hot spots. They were on the scene that time about two and-a-half hours.
Daly says some people were in the house at the time the fire initially broke out but got out unharmed. He says the cause is under investigation…
“It’s pretty tough. There’s not much of it left. I do have the fire marshal coming in here, I’m supposed to talk to him here this morning some time.”
Daly adds the cold weather didn’t help matters any…
“Once you start tankering water you make nothing but ice. So we actually had the county come up there and sand the street there once so we could keep tankers rolling.”
Daly thanks everyone who helped out in the extreme conditions…
“We had the emergency manager and the Sheriff’s Office there. Lakes Regional had an ambulance there for rehab and I do believe we had a Spirit Lake officer up there. We used the swimming beach on the north end of Spirit. We dropped a couple, three, portable pumps in there and we were filling the trucks right from there. We had such a problem with getting in there and getting out with traffic that we had to shut it down after awhile.”
Again there were no reports of injuries.
The Spirit Lake Fire Department was called back to the scene for a third time shortly after 9:00 am this (Monday) morning after neighbors reported seeing flames coming again from the rubble.
