Passerby Wakes Up People Inside Historic Highland Home On Fire

HIGHLAND, IL (KTVI) – An historic home in Highland, Illinois may be a total loss after a two-alarm fire.

The blaze gutted the back of the home then got into the attic before firefighters could extinguish it.

“It’s completely restored. All the pocket doors, all the wood floors,” said the homeowner Brenda Hendricks.

But now the 110-year-old house on Main Street is gutted after an early morning blaze.

The fire started around 5:15am Tuesday. Brenda was inside with her daughter and her daughter’s friend. They were all asleep and apparently the smoke alarms going off didn`t wake them up.

Authorities say a passerby saw the fire and started pounding on the door. That finally woke up Brenda, “I opened up my eyes and the room was like filled with smoke and then I got up and I opened my bedroom door and the hallway. That’s right when Kaylee opened her door. The hallways were filled with smoke and hear the pounding. So we ran downstairs and I looked back and I could see all in the kitchen the fire, I heard glass popping.”

Everyone was able to get out safely.

When firefighters arrived, they found the back of the house engulfed in flames.

A broken gas main helped to feed the fire.

“I walked around the back and I couldn’t get no closer, I didn’t have no protection on, but I could get no closer than oh, probably about 40 feet away from the radiant heat. It was really intense and flames really rocking and rolling,” said Highland Fire Chief Rick Bloemker.

Brenda isn`t sure what she`ll do now, “I don’t know if it’s fixable. I don’t know yet.”

A cause for the fire hasn’t been determined yet but authorities think it was an accident.

Hendricks says she smarted smelling a barbeque like odor around the house Monday, but she didn`t think much of it at the time.

The Illinois State Fire Marshal has been called in to help with the investigation.