SOUTH BEND. Ind. — South Bend fire crews battled a house fire in the 1800 block of S. Michigan Street near Calvert Sunday.
The call came in around 4:35 p.m.
Crews arrived to find a man waving from a second-story window. Firefighters used a ladder to help him escape the home, but then the man fled the scene.
Firefighters don’t believe the man lived at the home, which they say was vacant.
They asked drivers to avoid the area for 2.5 hours.
Police reopened the block between Calvert and Dayton shortly after 7 p.m.
“It was a wind-driven fire — lot of wind, lot of [external] openings. Those openings were directing the fire in all sorts of ways,” said Batt. Chief Carl Buchanon, South Bend Fire Department.
Crews battled the fire on all three levels.
Buchanon says the fire destroyed power lines in the back, making the blaze more difficult to douse.
Curt Isakson is a 35 year veteran of the fire service. Curt is currently a Battalion Chief for Escambia County Fire Rescue. Previously worked 9 years with the Pensacola Fire Department where he was assigned as the Company Officer on Rescue 31. Curt’s fire service experiences started at a young age as a Junior firefighter with the Midway Fire Protection District and rose through the ranks to Captain. He has worked in volunteer, career, and combination departments.
Curt has held all ranks up to Battalion Chief and been assigned to operations, training, inspections, and was Chief of Special Operations for 7 years. Curt owns and operates County Fire Tactics that covers a very diverse range of fire service topics, as well as Firefighter Rescues, a site that documents rescues made by firefighters around the country.
He has annual contracts with numerous departments to provide standardized monthly training for these departments that respond daily together under an automatic aid agreement. Curt teaches nationally to include; FDIC, Firehouse Expo, Firehouse World, Orlando Fire Conference, Atlanta Fire Conference, Bowling Green State University, and owns/operates the annual HROC, COBC, WOTF, CFT ODP on Pensacola Beach. He is a Florida Certified Fire Officer, Instructor, Inspector, Arson, and FLUSAR.
lines in the back, making the blaze more difficult to douse.
