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Pets killed in mobile home fire:
Neighbor passing by uses garden hose to suppress blaze before firefighters arrive
by James Boyd
(812) 331-4370
jboyd@heraldt.com
Bloomington Herald Times
August 12, 2007
Greg Harden had just finished an evening motorcycle ride when he rounded the bend that leads to his home on West Dunlap Road.
Instead of the normal scene, Harden saw 8-foot-tall flames shooting from the roof of a neighbor’s house.
“They were shooting out the kitchen window,” Harden said late Saturday night.
He got off his motorcycle, ran to the house of the neighbor he barely knows, pulled a garden hose from its spool, and became an on-the-spot firefighter.
“I thought I could slow it down,” Harden said. “I knew the closer I got, the more I could put out.”
The single-family mobile home, located in the 4500 block of West Dunlap, broke out in flames around 8 p.m.
Van Buren Township Fire Chief Tim Deckard said investigators hadn’t determined a cause.
“I was first on the scene, and saw heavy smoke and fire coming from the rear of the trailer,” Deckard said. “That’s where I found a neighbor using a garden hose to slow the fire from the rear window.”
That neighbor was Harden.
“I just kept spraying the hose,” he said, watching firefighters deal with the smoldering remains.
Deckard said the interior of the home suffered extensive damage. Two family pets — including a dog — did not survive the blaze. Still, fire officials and other neighbors were quick to praise the actions of Harden.
“They said I saved them a lot of damage,” Harden said of the reaction from firefighters.
Harden, who has never fought any kind of fire before, was able to contain the fire to the point where it was pretty much out by the time fire engines reached the scene.
One Van Buren firefighter was transported to Bloomington Hospital after suffering a knee injury while responding to the fire call. The injury wasn’t believed to be serious.
The home’s owners were just being notified as fire crews finally came out of the house. They were not present at the scene.
“I’ve got to commend (Harden) for his quick action,” Deckard said. “He helped keep the flames knocked down. They were already coming through the windows when he started putting the hose on them.”
*This article was copied with permission from http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/08/12/news.qp-6563183.sto.