Eatonton and Putnam County firefighters were busy last week battling four different fires on homes and a vehicle.
Eatonton Fire Chief Jamey Williamson and Putnam County Fire Chief Thomas McClain said no one was injured in any of the incidents.
Harbor Drive
On Tuesday, June 3, a couple smelled smoke inside their home on the 100 block of Harbor Drive around 1:40 p.m. and called Putnam County 911.
“When they smelled smoke, they went and investigated, and they saw fire on the back corner of their house,” McClain said.
When firefighters drove to the scene, they noticed “heavy smoke conditions throughout the home and fire showing on the outside of the side of the structure,” McClain said of the double-wide mobile home.
“The city (Eatonton Fire Department) sent their tanker truck because there are no fire hydrants out there in that neighborhood,” McClain added
Each of the county’s fire trucks carries 1,000 gallons of water, and the city’s tanker truck holds 3,000 gallons.
“So, we were able to hook their 3,000 to our first arriving truck and …crews went inside the home with hose lines, attacked the fire and were able to extinguish it and contain it to the room of origin,” McClain said.
The door of another bedroom was closed next to the room that was burning, McClain noted.
“Though the outside of that door was severely charred, everything inside that room barely had smoke damage,” he said. “So, temperatures in the hall were likely around 1,000 degrees or more, but inside that bedroom, it can stay around 100 degrees just by having the door closed.
“That’s why we say you should always close your bedroom door at night when you go to bed,” he added, “because in a fire, it can make the difference between life and death.”
The flames of the engulfed room burned completely through an exterior wall of that room, making the house uninhabitable, according to the fire chief. McClain said that the homeowners have family in the area where they could stay, and they have fire insurance.
The state fire marshal and Putnam County’s fire marshal ruled the fire was unintentional, but the cause is still under investigation.
The other three fires happened on Thursday, June 5.
Hillside Apartments
A few minutes after 10 a.m., the city fire department was called to Hillside Apartments on East Sumter Street.
“When we got there, the apartment unit itself was filled with smoke, but we didn’t have any flames there,” Chief Williamson said. “So, we didn’t have to do any kind of evacuation of the whole building, thank goodness.”
The residents in the apartment had been cooking in an air fryer that was sitting on top of their stove, and it overheated and burned out, Williamson said. Because it was plugged into the electrical outlet, the breaker automatically shut off.
“So, we just vented the smoke out of the apartment, and that was really all we had to do,” Williamson said. “It was kind of short and sweet on that one.”
Hogan Boulevard
At noon, city firefighters responded to a call on the 100 block of Hogan Boulevard, where a single-wide mobile home was burning. Williamson said when they pulled up, they could see “a good bit of smoke” coming from all the windows and flames in one end.
Two men lived in the trailer, but only one was home at the time of the fire, and he was able to get out safely before firefighters arrived. The resident stated that he was in a different bedroom when he saw and smelled smoke, so he exited and called the homeowner, who in turn called the fire department.
A window air conditioner unit plugged into an extension cord was the cause of the fire, Williamson said.
“Something as big as an air conditioner unit should not be plugged up to a drop cord, and this one here was plugged up to a drop cord and going to another receptacle somewhere in the room,” he explained. “The drop cord probably heated up because the air conditioner was drawing so much power, so the cause was electrical.”
He said firefighters and fire trucks from Putnam County assisted them in battling the blaze.
Old Milledgeville Road
As soon as the Hogan Boulevard fire was extinguished, Putnam County firefighters were called to Old Milledgeville Road for a truck fire.
According to a report by Putnam County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Hudspeth, a Ram tow truck was carrying a Ford Transit Connect passenger van.
The tow truck driver, Rodney Brown of Hercules Roadside and Towing, said he owned both vehicles. Brown reportedly was towing the transit van back from a tire shop when he looked in his rearview mirror and noticed smoke coming from the front of the Ford. Brown said he pulled over and dropped the vehicle from his tow truck.
“Brown was towing the Ford from the rear and placed the transmission in neutral,” Hudspeth wrote in his report. “The transmission became overheated and caused the vehicle fire.”
McClain said both northbound lanes of U.S. Hwy. 441 were closed for a brief period while PCFD firefighters extinguished the fire.
After it was extinguished, Brown hooked the van back onto the wrecker and towed it back to Covington.