Four Texas County fire departments responded Saturday, April 15, to an early morning fire that destroyed a house on Highway 17 near the Big Creek bridge.
Raymondville Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mike Jackson said a total of seven fire trucks and 14 personnel from his department, Clear Springs, Summersville and Tyrone responded at about 5:30 a.m., but by then it was already too late to save the house.
A motorist on Highway 17 reportedly saw the house burning and called authorities.
“It was called in fully involved,” Jackson said, “and the roof had already fallen in by the time we got there.”
The blaze was near the roadway, and a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper assisted with directing traffic while firefighters performed their duties.
“We had half of Highway 17 blocked for a few hours,” Jackson said. “But I was surprised by how little traffic there was at that time in the morning on a Saturday, so that was good.”
Jackson said the Summersville FD received several calls about rekindles.
“We cooled it as much as we could,” he said, “but it did rekindle in one corner of the house where a lot of debris had fallen into the basement.”
Jackson said the cause of the blaze isn’t known, and no people or animals were injured.
The man and woman who lived in it were in Sikeston at the time of the fire.
“There was a little concern at first, because we didn’t know if anybody was home,” Jackson said. “We flowed more water than we would have if we had known everyone was out, but not knowing for sure, we continued to fight the fire hard until we knew nobody as inside.”