GENOA – Genoa-Kingston Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Stoffregen is grateful no one was home at 225 W. Main St. when a fire started before sunrise, spread to the second-floor apartment and left the building uninhabitable.
“Thank goodness they weren’t home at the time,” he said Tuesday afternoon, a couple of hours after crews left the scene.
Stoffregen said his crew received the call at 5:30 a.m. and when they arrived at the scene, heavy flames were moving from the first floor and into the second. The business in the first floor, Cutters Family Hair Care, was supposed to reopen today, according to a sign in the storefront window.
“It’s going to take quite some time before the business or apartment will be able to occupy or use them,” he said, adding that the department had still been unable to contact the tenants as of Tuesday afternoon.
A GoFundMe page titled Fawcett Family House Fire Relief has been set up by Mike Mastrengeli, and has already raised about $100 of a $3,000 goal. Mastrengeli writes on the page that his brother, who lives in the apartment with his 4-year-old son, had just left for work before the fire started.
It took the crews nearly an hour to get the blaze under control because of the building’s balloon frame construction, which means there’s space in the walls for flames to move through the structure quickly.
Stoffregen said he thinks the fire started on the first floor, but the state fire marshal is still investigating the incident. He said the salon’s owner, Jennifer Bolger-Kohler, has been in touch with her insurance company to figure out what to do next.
One Sycamore firefighter was hurt while fighting the fire and taken to Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital, Sycamore Fire Chief Pete Polarek said.
Stoffregen said he thinks the firefighter was already treated and released by the late afternoon.
Stoffregen expressed gratitude to the local Public Works Department for providing salt that melted the ice firefighters stood on as they fought the fire, with the gushing water quickly freezing when it hit the ground.
Stoffregen also thanked nearby Prairie State Winery and the Genoa Public Library for opening their spaces, where firefighters were able to recover.
“You go inside where you’re doing a lot of work and building up a lot of body heat, and then you go outside where it’s 15 below, that’s a lot of shock on the body,” he said.
The DeKalb, Sycamore, Kirkland, Cortland, Maple Park, Boone County, Marengo and Huntley fire departments all assisted.