Excerpts from wsil.com:
The Christopher Police Department said a call came in around 3:30 a.m. reporting a fire at 118 West Market Street. Seventeen fire departments and six police departments assisted in battling the two-story structure fire early Sunday morning.
Christopher Fire Chief Ron Learned said a call for Mayday came an hour after the fire started for someone down inside the fire scene. “We were able to bring one of those people out and then the other we did not recover until later.”
“The City of Christopher Fire Department announces the line of duty death of Christopher Firefighter Kody Vanfossan. Firefighter Vanfossan fell in the line of duty early this morning while working a commercial building fire in the City of Christopher.”
Christopher’s police chief said that Vanfossan’s dad was also inside the building fighting the fire. Vanfossan is the grandson of Christopher Mayor Gary Bartolotti.
It’s unclear how the fire started, but officials said the building was a vacant furniture store, and that no one was inside at the time. Crews focused their attention to the top floor of the two-story building where smoke was seen coming out.
The State Fire Marshal is investigating.
