An Exeter Township neighbor ran into bitter predawn cold to alert residents after discovering a wind-fueled fire burning in a modular home\u2019s garage Sunday, officials said.<\/p>\n
The Sunday fire in the 100 block of Old Friedensburg Road started in the attached garage of a modular home where one person lived, with flames threatening a large camper trailer on the property that two other people occupied, Exeter Fire Marshal David M. Bentz said.<\/p>\n
Bentz said it appears the fire grew undetected for about 10 minutes before the neighbor discovered the flames about 3 a.m.<\/p>\n
Everyone got out safely, but the roof of the modular home collapsed and was rendered uninhabitable, he said.<\/p>\n
The neighbor did a good job of reporting the fire and waking the residents so fire crews could start rolling, Bentz said.<\/p>\n
One person resided in the house.<\/p>\n
Crews fought adverse conditions, including a wind of 20 mph to 30 mph and temperatures in the single digits, making conditions feel like well below zero.<\/p>\n
Three water lines from Exeter Township Fire Department were placed into service, while firefighters on a ladder truck pelted the flames, which ran the length of the roof, from above.<\/p>\n
A second alarm was struck to draw additional help. Support came from many mutual aid partners and agencies, including the Salvation Army of Boyertown\u2019s Canteen unit and a bus from Chester County Mass Casualty Unit, Jordan said. The bus gave firefighters and others a warm, comfortable place to rest and take in hot food and beverages, he said.<\/p>\n
The Exeter Township road department spread salt and antiskid materials as the water runoff quickly turned to ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crews did an outstanding job under those circumstances,\u201d Jordan said of the firefighters. \u201cIt was a really tough situation for them, but they all stepped up and did an outstanding job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Damage was estimated at $200,000, including camper damage, Bentz said.<\/p>\n
The cause hasn\u2019t been determined, but nothing appears suspicious, the fire marshal said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Exeter Township neighbor ran into bitter predawn cold to alert residents after discovering a wind-fueled fire burning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,1411,182,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":{"0":"post-109323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-exeter-township","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-reading-city","14":"tag-reading-city-headlines","15":"tag-reading-city-news","16":"tag-top-stories-reg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}