Fire chief: Fire started in rear of house

Feb. 11--MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. -- Ten Georgia College students who were living in a two-story historical house when it caught fire and destroyed Sunday night in Milledgeville managed to escape without injury.

The large wood-frame structure, known as the Theta Chi House, was located at 230 N. Columbia St. near Montgomery Street and had stood there for more than a century.

The only report of injury was to a Milledgeville firefighter who received what was described as a minor injury. He was treated and released from the emergency room of Navicent Health Baldwin hospital in Milledgeville Sunday night, according to Milledgeville Fire Chief William Collier.

City firefighters worked alongside fellow firefighters from Baldwin County Fire Rescue battling intense flames that roared high above the rooftop of the large house, which had been subdivided into six different student apartments, Collier told The Union-Recorder.

Collier said the cause of the fire remained under investigation as of Monday afternoon.

"In terms of investigation of this particular fire, we have decided to continue looking into it from an internal standpoint," Collier said.

The cause is being probed by retired Milledgeville Battalion Chief Jeff Hood.

"He came to the scene last night and was back there again Monday morning looking around," Collier said.

He said it could take days, weeks or even months to determine the cause.

"That is the ruling now," Collier said.

He also explained that the investigation could come back with a finding of an undetermined cause.

"What we're going to do now in our post-fire investigation is to eliminate any safety hazards," Collier said.

The walls of the century-plus home, along with a huge chimney, were expected to be torn down Monday afternoon or sometime Tuesday morning.

"We're going to [get] those remaining walls torn down for safety reasons for anybody walking along the sidewalks," Collier said. "Once we have addressed the safety issues, we're then going to release custody of the building to the insurance company.

"Our investigator will collaborate with the insurance company representatives to get us closer to a more definitive ruling as to the cause of the fire," Collier said.

The house fire was called in by one of the student tenants through a 911 call shortly before 6:30 p.m.

Collier said he talked with the 911 caller at the scene of the fire Sunday night.

"He was saying that he and a friend of his spotted the fire and that initially, they tried to put it out, but couldn't put it out," Collier said.

The fire was located in the rear of the house.

"It was what we would call the 'C' side of the back of the building," the fire chief said.

The house, owned by businessman Robert Lacher, was completely destroyed, Collier said.

More than two dozen city and county firefighters responded to the blaze, which was fought for more than two hours before it was brought under control.

Firefighters battling the blaze were aided by weather conditions.

"Although it was reasonably colder than recent nights, we didn't have the wind factor," Collier said. "We had exposure, which we call in our business, a 'B' side exposure, a house adjacent to our burning building. When you get a fire of this magnitude and this significance, it is very easy for a fire like this one to extend radiantly into the next structure."

Fortunately, such didn't happen.

"We had a pumper that set up a master stream in the middle where the fire was located to ensure that this structure did not spread," Collier said.

Collier called the fire a significant one based on the size of the community.

"I think this fire was a very significant fire for a community our size," Collier said. "Normally, in a community of 20,000 people roughly, you're not going to have significant events like this except maybe every five years or so. When this one occurred, you had a fraternity building that was essentially fully-involved by the time units got there and in place to start fighting the structure fire."

The veteran fire chief said when firefighters arrived they learned the building was dated from a construction standpoint.

"We had a situation of where the building's construction almost [lent] itself to a very rapid fire spread," Collier said.

The preliminary investigation revealed that the fire traveled up the wall in the rear of the building.

"This building had what is called balloon construction and what that means is there are no built-in fire stops to prevent or isolate a fire to one location where it began," Collier said. "This means that it is open all the way up to the ceiling of the building and the second floor of the building,"

Collier said he and other fire officials could see where the fire started by following the balloon frame construction and going directly up to the second floor and to the roofline.

"Subsequently, we had a fully-involved structure in probably less than five minutes," Collier said. "When I arrived on the scene, the building was actually fully-involved and master operations were in place."

Collier said he was pleased with the execution of Milledgeville Fire Department as well as Baldwin County Fire Rescue working "collaboratively to mitigate the situation" and making sure that the students were out of the building.

"That was a very important thing," Collier said. "We want to save property, but human lives [are] much more valuable than property."

Collier said by city and county firefighters working collaboratively, they were able to set up a "fire watch" all night long.

"The relief points were at 2 a.m. Monday," Collier said. "We had Baldwin County Fire Rescue come over and relive our guys then. So, as a city and county, we had a very collaborative effort that rendered a very safe outcome for the city as a whole."

Collier said the cooperation doesn't get any better than what was exhibited between the two fire departments Sunday night.

"Since I've been here and have met Chief (Steve) Somers, he's shown himself to be very cooperative, and in fact, whatever we needed from them Sunday night by way of manpower, etc., they were more than willing to provide it for us," Collier said.

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