This article was originally published in The Examiner on Dec. 22, 2016.
By Eleanor Skelton
Staff Writer
A Nederland house caught fire Thursday morning.
The fire happened Thursday, Dec. 15, near the intersection of Detroit Avenue and Gage Avenue.
“We received a call at 9:12 this morning,” Nederland Fire Assistant Chief Terry Morton said. “We were here within five minutes.”
Upon arrival, he said, the crew observed “heavy fire showing out of the front side of the house through the front window.”
Once Morton’s team discovered the fire had reached the attic, he said they determined the structure was “basically a total loss” and “went into defensive mode.”
One firefighter suffered a minor injury, according to Morton. The residents and their pets were not at home at the time of the fire.
“We’re just in the finish-up and mop-up mode right now,” Morton said at 11 a.m.
The fire briefly endangered a metal structure next door, a machine shop and living quarters for a man in a wheelchair.
Nederland police officer Todd Guidry said he had to convince the man in the wheelchair to evacuate his home, along with his dog. The firefighters were concerned that one of the walls of the house could collapse onto his house.
Guidry and the man were soaked by water coming from the firefighters’ hoses while leaving.
“They were already putting water on the building because it was hot,” Guidry said. “It already sucked up a lot of the heat, so we were getting all of the overspray.”
Guidry said he helped the man sit in his patrol car to wait until it was safe to return to his house.
Eleanor Skelton 