Residents escape after Cahokia Heights man warns neighbors about fire burning in home
When Dee Harris looked out his back window and saw a lot of smoke near his Cahokia Heights home, he thought it may have been someone burning leaves on Thursday afternoon.
But when he stepped out onto his porch, he saw that it was actually his neighbor’s house on fire so he ran over and started banging on the door.
The residents were able to escape before the flames took over and no injuries were reported in the fire that destroyed the home at 852 St. Bartholomew Drive, according to Lt. Terry Minerd of the Cahokia Volunteer Fire Department.
Harris said the residents didn’t realize their house was on fire until he warned them.
“I said, ‘Hey you know something’s burning in your back yard.’ And they didn’t know,” Harris said.
“And once I said that, smoke was just coming out of the house. The smoke detectors were going off. So I was just holding the door open, I was just letting them know, ‘Hey, you’ve got to get out of the house.’
“It happened so quick,” Harris said.
Minerd said the cause of the fire is under investigation but he noted that it did start in the rear of the home.
“When we pulled up, the house was fully involved on the back side of the house,” Minerd said. “We started calling for mutual aid from other departments because we didn’t have the manpower.”
Cahokia firefighters received the call for help at 3:48 p.m. and six other departments assisted Cahokia, Minerd said.
While the city has officially changed its name to Cahokia Heights, the fire department is still called the Cahokia Volunteer Fire Department, Minerd said.
This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 8:28 PM.
