House saved, shed burned to ground
Staff reporter
"Lucky" was a word repeated often Friday afternoon at Goessel by residents and firefighters.
A small, wood shed located a few feet from the rear of a residence at 206 E. Main, Goessel, had caught on fire.
Goessel Fire Department quickly responded with 16-18 firefighters at the scene and extinguished the fire within a few minutes.
When the smoke cleared, the shed was gone but the house remained with no visible damage to it or neighboring structures.
"I had just pulled up to the house," said Kate Hiebert of rural Hillsboro, "when I saw smoke and flames. I thought the house was on fire."
She ran inside to tell her daughter, Debbie McCauley, to grab her baby and get out.
"We had just returned home after a week in the hospital with the baby," said McCauley. Her husband Will McCauley had cleaned the flue in the wood stove and taken the ashes to the shed.
"I didn't think too much about it," said Will McCauley. "It had been a week since the stove was lighted and I figured the ashes were out. I had walked out of the house 10 minutes before and everything was fine."
When the ashes were dumped into the container in the wood shed, there must have been one stubborn ember that had not been extinguished.
Debbie McCauley said she was just inside the house with her six-month-old baby and wasn't aware of the fire until her mother alerted her.
Preliminary reports indicated wind gusts probably caused the ember to blow from the box in the shed and ignite the ground near the shed. Adding dry conditions to a strong wind, the shed was engulfed within a few minutes.
"There were flames touching the roof of the house," said Debbie McCauley.
Hillsboro Fire Department was dispatched when the call first came in at 11:40 a.m., but were called off before arriving.
A tree located between the wood shed and the house was burned and caused a plastic child's swing to fall on the ground. Ironically, the fire burned around the swing and did not melt or singe the swing.
The fire burned grass within six to eight feet of the house.
The McCauley home is owned by Craig and Dena Schmidt of Goessel.
Larry Jay, fire chief, said special care always should be given to ashes from fireplaces or stoves.
"Ashes need to be placed in metal containers with a lid and away from combustibles," Jay said.
He was pleased with the response and performance of his crew.
"It could have been a lot worse," said Jay.
