One injured in Sycamore fire
By CARRIE FRILLMAN cfrillman@daily-chronicle.com
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| Firefighters work to control a blaze at a house on Maness Court in Sycamore on Tuesday night. (Rob Winner – rwinner@daily-chronicle.com) |
SYCAMORE – A duplex fire in the 1600 block of Maness Court Tuesday night left one tenant injured.
The fire at 1623 Maness Court was called into the Sycamore Fire Department around 5:15 p.m. by a neighbor, said DeKalb Fire Chief Bruce Harrison, who was assisting at the scene.
One man and two dogs escaped from the home, officials said. The man – his name was not released Tuesday – was taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital in DeKalb where he was being treated for what Harrison said were not life-threatening injuries, he said. The condition of the two dogs was unavailable Tuesday night.
The second apartment unit within the duplex is unoccupied, Harrison said.
"The fire was contained to the one building, but it rapidly evolved through the structure," he said. "There's still a lot of work to do, and we don't know everything."
It took responders about 40 minutes to get the blaze under control. Its origin was not yet known around 7:20 p.m., when about 30 firefighters from around the area remained on the scene.
Nearly 100 onlookers lined the sidewalks around 5:30 p.m., when the home was engulfed in flames.
Angie Johns and her two kids were among them, watching firefighters spray water on the home's roof from a truck's extended ladder. Johns was one of the neighbors to call 911 about the fire, she said.
"When I first saw the house, I thought, 'Wow that dryer vent is putting out a lot of smoke,'" said Johns, who lives across the street. "But then I saw that it was pouring out of the gutters."
The smell of smoke filled the air for miles, and emergency vehicles prevented access to Maness Court for one block north of Conlin Avenue. Flames remained visible through the two windows of the one-story building until around 6 p.m.
Ibrahim Ali, 23, lives next door to the duplex in an apartment at 1617 Maness Court. He called the fire in at 5:16 p.m., he said, checking his cell phone to make sure.
"My room got really hot on the left side," Ali said. "My desk is against that wall, and I noticed something was wrong. Then smoke started to come inside the building."
Ali left his apartment and began alerting neighbors – first, the tenant in the duplex.
"I was knocking on the siding because the front door was on fire," he said, noting he began to throw rocks at the home.
Responders were on scene within a couple minutes, Ali said.
Other help, including Noel Smith, a volunteer with the DeKalb County Chapter of the American Red Cross, also arrived.
"We're here to find out if we are needed," she said, noting that the organization was providing drinking water for firefighters. Volunteers from the Red Cross also offer shelter to those displaced by fires or other natural disasters, vouchers for clothing and food, and emotional support.
"We let them know we are here for them, however they might need us," Smith said.
Harrison and Sycamore Assistant Fire Chief Mark Kessler said firefighters would likely remain on the scene until late into the night, investigating the cause of the blaze and ensuring the structure did not re-ignite.
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