When a van caught fire that was being worked on inside a commercial garage at about 10:30 a.m. last Monday morning on U.S. 63 south of Simmons, Mike Jones – the firm’s owner – was in the bathroom.
Witnesses said it’s a good thing a Missouri Department of Transportation worker happened by on the highway and stopped when he noticed the blaze, because Jones had been overcome by smoke and was dragged from the burning building by the MoDOT employee.
Houston Rural Fire Department Chief Don Gaston said the department responded to the fire with nine personnel, along with two pumper trucks, a tanker and two brush trucks.
The two-bay garage and an adjacent office space were completely destroyed. A fire investigator reportedly determined the blaze originated with a short in a fuse box of a mini-van being worked on inside the garage.
Intense heat from the blaze melted vinyl siding on a house next the garage, but that structure escaped major damage as Jones and others reportedly used a garden hose to wet it down.