Fire damages home on Highway 25 in Jackson

As she watched firefighters setting up fans to ventilate her home, Elaine Illers thought about how close she had come to not escaping the fire that erupted Saturday afternoon in her home on Highway 25 in Jackson.

Her gray hair was badly singed from attempting to fight the blaze with a household fire extinguisher. She had been sleeping in the home at 2205 Highway 25 and smelled smoke when she awoke. She went to her bathroom and when she exited, the flames were coming out of a room on the west side of the single-story home.

"I was trying to fight the fire with the fire extinguisher, but it didn't work," she said.

Jackson firefighters responded to the call about 3:20 p.m. and smoke was pouring from all four sides of the house when they arrived, Capt. Stephen Grant said. The fire apparently started in a family room, and had burned through the roof by the time firefighters began their attack.

The cause of the fire wasn't immediately apparent, Grant said. "We haven't gotten to look around real good yet," he said.

Two rooms of the house suffered major fire damage and the rest of the house suffered smoke and heat damage, he said.

Illers was lucky she escaped, Grant said. Attempting to fight a raging fire with a household extinguisher can be a fatal mistake.

"It is a human response to try to put out the fire," he said. But only the smallest household fires, such as a in a pan on the stove or a trash can, are likely to be beaten that way, he said.

Illers' singed hair shows she was so close to the fire that she could easily have received a lungful of superheated air that could have killed her, he said. The best advice he can give, he said, "is call 911 and get out."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126