Refrigerator fire displaces Hillham resident

A refrigerator caught fire damaging a Hillham apartment and temporarily displacing its resident Wednesday night.

According to Dubois Volunteer Fire Department spokesman Zach Eichmiller, John Baker Jr. was working in the garage on the lower level of a building on the 11000 block of E. State Road 56 when he noticed smoke coming through the floor. Baker went upstairs to his apartment and saw smoke coming into it. He felt a wall that separated his apartment from an unoccupied room and found that it was hot.

He gained access to the uninhabited room and found that a recently installed refrigerator was on fire.

According to Eichmiller, John Jr. went to his father’s shop across the street to get fire extinguishers, and he was able to hold the fire in check briefly. While John Jr. was attempting to quell the flames, a family member reported the fire to authorities.

The first arriving firefighters found the room filled with smoke and the refrigerator still on fire. The fire department quickly extinguished the fire and took the appliance outside, but not before the building sustained some smoke and water damage.

The malfunctioning refrigerator had just been installed earlier in the day by John Jr. and his father John Baker Sr. It was a used unit but had been working prior to being installed by the two men.

John Baker Sr., of 11018 E. State Road 56, owns the building that is across the road from his residence.

The residence should be inhabitable after electric service is restored.

The apartment had a working smoke detector, and it did activate.

There were no injuries.

Three trucks and 29 firefighters were on the scene for an hour.

The Lost River Township Volunteer Fire Department was initially called for tanker assistance but were called off once Dubois Volunteer Fire Department arrived and assessed the scene.