Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Clothes basket catches fire

Gurdon firefighters arrived at 401 Miller Street at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 6, but a laundry fire was already out.

Gurdon Fire Chief Robert Burns said Gurdon Police Officer Chris Russell was on the scene when he arrived.

"I was asleep when the call came in, but it didnt take me 7 or 8 minutes to get there," Burns said. "There were seven firefighters who arrived on the scene, but all we did was put the exhaust fan in there to take care of the smoke."

According to Burns, his crew was at the residence less than 30 minutes.

The fire occurred at a house occupied by Mary Louise Cook while Cook was visiting a neighbor.

Burns said it appeared an iron had been left on and fell over, causing minor damage to the floor.

Although Gurdon Volunteer Fire Department sent a pumper truck, no water was ever applied.

"It looked like someone might have put a little water on the problem area before we arrived, but we did not have to put on any more," he said.

Burns said Russell had already put the ironing board up when firefighters got there.

Burns said the minor damage was to the ironing board, the iron, a couple of throw rugs and the floor.

"Ms. Cook was upset and talked to the ambulance personnel to calm down, but she did not have to go to the hospital," Burns said. "We understand from Wayne Kuhn, who was at the scene, that his girlfriend spotted the fire."

Neighbor saw fire

Renee Prince, a neighbor of Cooks, was walking by and spotted the fire.

Charles Carter, also of Gurdon, was with Prince and Kuhn for the walk.

Kuhn said, "We saw that nobody was home and the place was on fire. I held the window open and Carter got in. He found the main thing on fire was a basket of clothes, and a tennis shoe was catching.

"Charles threw the clothes and shoe out the window. Then he tossed out what appeared to be the ironing board and two irons.

"As soon as the authorities arrived, we got out of the way and let them handle things."

Burns said the intervention was fortunate, the damage kept to a minimum and no one was hurt.

Camp fire

Burns said Gurdon Fire Department had been called out at 1:30 a.m. Sunday to extinguish a campfire on the railroad tracks off of Highway 53 where some cross ties were burning.

"All we did was call the Forestry Commission because they had the hand-held equipment to get way back there and put out the fire," he said.