Firefighters with the Houston Rural Fire Department responded to a fire call at a home in Bucyrus in frigid conditions Wednesday night.
Houston Rural Chief Don Gaston said 10 men and three trucks traveled to 7275 Douglas Road at about 10 p.m. in response to a reported flue fire. They arrived in time to snuff the flames before substantial damage occurred.
“Man, it was cold,” Gaston said. “It was an old-time flue and it was on the way to burning the house, but we got to it before it did much. It’s going to cost them a new flue and it charred things up a bit around the flue where it came out in a spot, but other than that, it was a bunch of smoke and that’s it.”
The flue fire was the first Houston Rural has responded to in 2015.
“Let’s hope we get some warm weather before we get another one, because that was rough,” Gaston said. “But I guess we’re kind of like the U.S. mail – we go rain or snow.”
In temperatures not quite as frigid, Gaston and company were at it again the following night, as four firefighters and two trucks responded just after midnight Friday to a fire at a residence on Highway B east of Houston. Gaston said the cause of that fire was a faulty electrical furnace, and damage to the home was once again minimal.
“The furnace apparently shorted out,” he said. “It mostly just caused a bunch of smoke damage.”