January 25, 2003

Fire Destroys Garage

      A detached garage went up in flames Friday afternoon when a car inside caught fire. The garage, vehicle and John Deer garden tractor were destroyed. The homeowner was injured, not by fire, but when he slipped and fell. The homeowner’s house, just 5 feet from the burning garage, was spared from the flames. According to Battalion Chief Mike Pruitt of the Bargersville Fire Department, William Cloud was backing his 1988 Mercury Grand Marquis out of the one-car garage at 6001 W. County Road 300N. An undetermined malfunction, possibly electrical, caused the car to catch fire. It spread to the garage. Called at 4:21p.m., 15 firefighters from Bargersville and White River Township had the fire out 15 minutes after they arrived. An official amount of damage hadn’t been calculated, but the garage was destroyed, along with Cloud’s car and garden tractor. The car was insured, Pruitt said. Water sprayed on the fire quickly froze in Friday’s bitterly cold weather, leaving the ground slick. Cloud slipped and fell, and had to be taken to Johnson Memorial Hospital for an un determined right leg injury. The fire itself injured no one.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal.)
 

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