By Patty Decker
Hillsboro Free Press – November 20, 2013
Submitted by Newz Group Clipping Service – December 9, 2013
Fire destroyed a house at 207 N. Washington St. in Hillsboro during the early morning hours Tuesday.
Ben Steketee, Hillsboro Fire Chief, said firefighters were called to the scene at 5:30 a.m. after a neighbor and another individual called 911 to report the blaze.
“When we got there, the structure was completely involved,” Steketee said. “There was fire coming out the front door and windows on the ground floor facing north and south.”
Steketee said firefighters started to make entry into the house and fight the flames from the inside.
“We quickly realized we were in a losing battle,” he said. “There wasn’t anybody inside and it was a vacant house. I wasn’t going to risk the lives of firefighters for material possessions.”
Consequently, fire crews went into a defensive mode, fighting the fire from the outside and spraying a water/foam mixture, Steketee said.
Paul Thomas, an investigator with the Kansas State Fire Marshal’s Office, was called in, Steketee said. The cause was ruled “undetermined.”
The investigator did say the fire started in the front of the house, which is where most of the loss occurred.
Unfortunately, Steketee said, the owner of the property, Johnnie Liles, was moving possessions into the house for storage.
It was fortunate that the house wasn’t occupied at the time of the blaze, Steketee said. Liles was in the process of fixing it up in his spare time.
“It had been rented out before and Johnnie and his wife stayed there when they came out from Oklahoma,” he said.
The house was valued at about $20,000, according to the Marion County Appraiser’s office, and some of the items inside might be salvageable.
On Monday, Steketee said, Liles was boarding up the house and tearing down the asbestos siding.
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