A rural home in the unincorporated township of Spankey in southern Greene County is a complete loss after a fire yesterday morning.
The Carrollton-Eldred-Kane Fire Protection District received an initial call of a residential structure fire at 205 Spankey Road at approximately 10:30AM yesterday morning. Carrollton Fire Chief Tim Thaxton says that fire fighters arrived on scene to find the home fully engulfed on both ends of the structure and a natural gas tank at the rear of the structure was on fire, producing flames up the back of the house upwards of 7-8 feet high. Due to its rural location, Thaxton said fighting the fire was difficult due to the size and the lack of a nearby water source.
Thaxton says firefighters could never make entry to the home due to the size of the fire and the fact that a cache of ammunition from the homeowners was igniting and going off. Thaxton says that firefighters were on scene well into the afternoon fighting a defensive fire just to suppress the flame. He says the homeowners, two elderly family members had only been gone a half hour from the structure and were not home at the time the fire started.
Thaxton says due to the extent of the blaze and the inability to enter the home, the cause of the fire was not suspicious but remains undetermined. One elderly family dog did perish in the blaze.
Jerseyville Fire Department and the White Hall Fire Department provided mutual aid to the scene. The Village of Eldred remains under a boil order today due to emergency use of the village’s water reserves to fight the fire.