Black Smoke Alerts Firefighters To Nearby FireThick black smoke rising down the road from the Warsaw Municipal Airport alerted firefighters at the airport to a fire Thursday at 725 and 733 E. CR 350N, Warsaw.
The firefighters were at the airport for the public SOAR! event being held with Cardinal Services where Cardinal’s clients and the public could see and touch airplanes and emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks.
County records indicate the property on CR 350N is owned by 350 North B 725 Land Trust, 203 Auditorium Blvd., Winona Lake. The house is at 733 E. CR 350N, while a shop is at 725.
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Brian Mayo said he didn’t know how or where it started “because we were all at the airport doing SOAR! and we just happened to see the smoke. So I drove over here because it really looked intense.”
Once he inspected what was going on, he called the fire in.
Making an assumption, he guessed the fire started in a pile of logs in the back of the property. Fire could be seen on the logs, in the grass, on a boat, in a tree and in the house.
“It’s gotten into everything. Everything except the shop,” Mayo said. “The house is probably a total loss. Mobile homes just don’t last very long, so when a fire starts, you’ve got minutes if you’re lucky.”
He was able to walk through the trailer before the fire really got going and he saw that the trailer was empty. There was no one inside and no furniture.
Mayo said the fire was in Plain Township Fire Department’s district, but since Warsaw firefighters were just down the road, they asked Plain if they wanted assistance and responded. They brought their equipment from SOAR! to the fire.
“We had an engine there, a battalion and myself were all there,” Mayo said, and they knew Plain Township Fire would need the help.
The fire was called in at about 2:22 p.m. and was under control by about 2:52 p.m.
“We’ve got to get the hot spots taken care of and it got into the tree line pretty good, which is where that Leesburg truck was trying to drive the tree line because it’s so hot and so dry. They’re doing hot spots (now),” Mayo said.
Asked if there’s been a lot of grass fires so far this year, he said, “It’s starting to pick up. It’s so dry, so windy out. There’s just no rain, so it’s definitely picking up. And it’s not just us, it’s everybody in the county.”
Along with Warsaw and Plain, there was a truck from Winona Lake Fire Department and officers from the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office and Warsaw Police Department were on scene and helped divert traffic on CR 350N.
