A fire broke out in a house on the 200 block of Rockville Springs Drive on Monday.
There are no fire hydrants in that area, but thankfully, there’s Lake Sinclair, said Putnam County Fire Chief Thomas McClain.
“Our fireboat responded and pulled up to the dock and was able to supply the ground-based trucks with lake water, so we had plenty of water,” McClain said.
No one was injured, and McClain estimated the damage to the house to be a 50% loss.
“The truck from Station 7 on Long Shoals was the first one on scene,” McClain said. “We just manned that station with full-time firefighters on July 1st, so that significantly improved our response time.”
A family member of the residents was home cleaning at the time, and she was able to safely get out of the log cabin home and run to a neighbor’s house to call 911.
McClain said her cell phone was inside near the fire, “but cell phone service isn’t the best right there anyway, so she was fortunate the neighbor was home.”
The call came in to Putnam County’s 911 Emergency Service shortly before 5:20 p.m., and when firefighters arrived, the house was about 40% involved in flames. Putnam County Fire Department firefighters were there for almost three hours battling the fire and ensuring hotspots didn’t flare back up.
McClain said the fire appeared to have started in a first-floor bedroom, but he did not know the cause.
“We’ll let the homeowner’s insurance determine the final cause,” he said.