Excerpts from the woodstockindependent.com:
Woodstock Fire/Rescue District had a structure fire October 23rd in the 800 block of West Avenue.
A woman, the lone occupant of the home at the time of the fire, escaped without injury. The house had working smoke detectors, but the woman apparently fled after hearing commotion in the garage.
The garage was heavily damaged, as was a car inside that firefighters later had towed into the driveway. Some fire damage occurred in the attic, and smoke throughout the home made it uninhabitable. Relatives were arranging for the woman to stay elsewhere. Firefighters were on the scene for about two hours after being called at 5:41 p.m.
The district’s 12-member shift was stretched thin as two ambulances had been called out less than an hour before the fire, and a traffic accident at U.S. 14 and Hartland Road just before 6 p.m. also required an ambulance.
Patients had to be transported to hospitals outside Woodstock, which delayed getting a second ambulance to the scene of the fire.
The district’s initial response involved an engine, one ambulance, and the shift commander. A second call brought the chief and a ladder truck. Fire units from Wonder Lake, Union, and Huntley also were at the scene.
How rare are structure fires in Woodstock? Of the 458 calls the district responded to in September, only four were fire calls, and none matched the scope of last week’s call. In 2018, about 1 percent of all calls were fire-related, whereas 75 percent were ambulance-related.
