House on Indian Creek Road trashed by fire

By Craig Hendry

An update about this fire can be found here.

Fire tore through a Chatham residence late this afternoon, leaving nothing but a charred shell of what was someones home.

Fire crews responded to a reported structure fire at 445 Indian Creek Road just after 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon to discover thick, heavy, toxic smoke billowing from the house. Firefighters tried to knock down the fire quickly, but the fire was already in the walls of this balloon frame construction house. Fire traveled through the hollow walls of the structure spreading from the basement to the attic, which made it difficult to find and extinguish the blaze.

Multiple vent holes were cut in the roof to allow the smoke and heat to escape in an effort to make a safer environment for firefighters. Fire could be seen blowing through the vent holes on the roof as fire crews worked.

Firefighters had to tear off a large portion of vinyl siding to get to the flames.

Assistant Fire Chief Rick Scharf told CKReview that no one was home at the time of the fire, noting that there were no injuries.

Scharf said that the cause of the fire has yet to be determined, and there was no damage estimate at the time.

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