House fire, medical emergency and more pull Huntingburg firefighters from annual Christmas Party

The Huntingburg Volunteer Fire Department was in the midst of its annual Christmas Party Wednesday night when the first call for a fire came in at 7:04 p.m.

With the majority of the department on hand, it was a quick response to the Chestnut Street home.

Chief Donnie Heim, who’s been hampered from directly fighting fires because of a recent foot procedure, headed to the station where the Huntingburg Fire Department Auxiliary was preparing water and hot chocolate for the firefighters at the home. He dropped his wife off at the station and took the medical truck over to the fire in case it was needed, but as he was driving there, another call came in for assistance at 7:14 p.m.

It was for an unresponsive individual just a few blocks from the fire, so Chief Heim headed there on his own.

Then, while he and Huntingburg Police Department officers were assisting with the unresponsive individual, another call came in at 7:16 p.m. Someone smelled smoke at the Quality Inn on the north side of town.

“We immediately called for Jasper,” Heim said.

While a couple of units from Huntingburg responded to the Quality Inn, Jasper also responded to assist.

Fortunately, the firefighters searched the hotel and found nothing. “But you never know,” Heim said, adding that the unresponsive individual he helped was taken to Deaconess Memorial Medical Center.

Regarding the response to the house fire, responding firefighters arrived to flames licking out the front windows. According to Heim, they knocked down the flames and entered the home. Finding the fire concentrated in the front living room, they suppressed it but had to tear into the walls to extinguish it completely.

“We had a lot of smoke but we couldn’t find any fire,” Heim explained. “So we tore into the walls and we found it and were able to put it out.”

A man and a three-year-old in the home were transported to Deaconess Memorial Medical Center, where the man was treated for smoke inhalation and minor burns. Both were subsequently released from the hospital.

Heim said the fire extensively damaged the front room of the home, but, though the residents were displaced for the evening, the home was salvageable. A neighboring home sustained damage to its siding from the heat of the fire.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation.

Chestnut Street was closed for about two hours as crews worked the fire.

Chief Heim said they will likely reschedule their annual party for another night in a couple weeks.

He also explained that the number of calls that came in over such a short period really stretched the department and further supported the work they are doing to create an automated aid process between the Jasper and Huntingburg fire departments.

Through the agreement between the departments, they will automatically begin to respond to potentially assist in a response under certain circumstances — they are still working through those procedures.