There was a house fire in Cowley on November 16th, no one was home and no one was harmed in the extinguishing of the flames.
Bob Mangus, the Assistant Chief of the Lovell Fire Department, said that the house “didn’t burn down but was gutted.” They were able to save the garage and some of the support beams but the rest of the house was in ablaze.
The fire could have smoldered for several hours with Magus saying, “we are thinking an electrical light problem… it was a recessed light, it wasn’t really exposed, probably got on the floor trusses and spread where it wasn’t exposed.”
The inferno built up inside of the house until it all “basically exploded” and that’s when someone noticed and made the call.
“We got the call about 6:45. We let our fire crews leave at 11:30 that night. we kept one fire crew there that night and they were there all night.”
It wasn’t until 7:00 that next morning they could actually get inside and assess what else needed to be done.
When asking Mangus how often in his 38 years of service he has seen a house fire this bad he responded bluntly with, “not very often. Usually someone sees it right away and we get in there and do an internal attack.”
Mangus said his crew is fantastic and that they were glad they were able to put it out before it got even worse.
