A residence in rural Crawford County was totally destroyed by fire on Friday, Jan. 30, when sparks from an outdoor wood stove may have ignited a pile of firewood stacked nearby.
While it is hard to positively determine the cause of the fire, the outdoor wood stove seemed the likely source, according to Boscobel Fire Chief Todd Fischer.
Orlan ‘Joe’ Wallin’s residence located on Spring Road in Scott Township was totally engulfed in flames when Chief Fischer arrived on the scene just before 7 p.m.
A woman at the residence, who made the 911 call, suffered non-life threatening injuries from the fire. Fischer described her injuries as heat exposure to face and hands. The fire chief believes she may have suffered the injuries as she tried to open kennels adjoining the residence to allow dogs to escape the fire.
While some dogs did escape others died in the fire, according to Fischer. He described the dogs as beagles or beagle-mixes.
“We were able to get a couple of the dogs that had gotten away from the house and brought them down to Joe at the end of the driveway,” Fischer said. Wallin, 66, arrived at his residence as the fire was being extinguished.
The call reporting the fire at 40470 Spring Road was received by the Crawford County Dispatch Center at 6:38 p.m. The Boscobel Fire Department was called out at 6:39 p.m.
The house is an owner-built wooden structure located in Scott Township near Spring Road and County S. A narrow dirt driveway could not accommodate the responding fire engines, which were forced to park on Spring Road. From there, firefighters stretched several hundred feet of hose up the driveway to the house.
When the fire was out, the outdoor woodstove, the kennel fences and the metal roofing were about all that remained.
The Boscobel Fire Department made a mutual aid request for a tanker and manpower from the Blue River Fire Department, as well as for tankers from the Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills Fire Departments. As it turned out, the aid was not needed and the responding Boscobel Fire Department extinguished the fire.
