An early morning fire left a Bowling Green couple homeless, burned all the Christmas presents, and caused an estimated $100,000 damage to the house at 511 S. College Drive.
The frigid temperatures and gusting winds made the fire difficult to fight, according to Bowling Green Fire Chief Bill Moorman
“It was absolutely horrible,” Moorman said Friday morning.
The fire started shortly after 3:30 a.m., when a man was cooking french fries in the kitchen. The grease fire quickly spread.
“The fire was coming out of two rooms when we got there,” Moorman said.
The man and his wife escaped the fire, with the husband suffering minor burns to his hands. They had family to stay with for the rest of the night, the fire chief said. The couple was put in contact with the Red Cross to find other temporary shelter.
When the firefighters arrived on the scene, the wind chill was -35 degrees, Moorman said. Firefighters were able to get water to the flames within 1.5 minutes of arriving at the house. But the weather conditions made it very difficult, he said.
“Those winds drove the fire,” he said. “It was difficult to extinguish.”
Firefighters remained on the scene for 1.5 hours, then left a crew at the scene for the rest of the night to make sure the fire didn’t re-ignite. They walked through the house with a heat imaging camera to make sure there were no hot spots, Moorman said.
The fire division did have plenty of staff on the scene, since some of the firefighters had come in Thursday night for their Friday shifts, rather than deal with the bad roads on Friday morning.
