Three individuals, including two Centralia Police officers, were taken to SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Centralia late Tuesday night after a fire erupted at a home in the 1100 block of Bond Street in southwest Centralia.
Centralia Fire Captain Blake Perez says a brother and sister were in the home at the time the fire broke out in the kitchen. The sister who owned the home, Diane Anderson, was able to get out of the home and call 911 to report the fire. She reported her brother, Charles Dickerson, who was medically unable to get out was trapped inside.
Perez explained the situation on their arrival.
“Whenever we arrived on the scene, we were presented with light smoke showing. We had three officers from the Centralia Police Department on the scene. They were directing us to the back where the resident was. Two officers were inside the house attempting to drag him out. We relieved them and completed removing the resident from the house to the outside. We then had our crews attack the fire. Patient care was given to the male resident of the home and the two police officers. All three were then transported to the hospital.”
Centralia Fire Chief Jeff Day says Dickerson later signed out of St. Mary’s Hospital and was taken to Salem Township Hospital before later being moved to Crossroads Hospital in Mt. Vernon for a medical issue not related to the fire. The two Centralia Police officers involved in the rescue have been identified as Travis Ripperda and Nolan Biggs. They were both treated and released at St. Mary’s.
Day said the two Centralia City Firefighters who completed the rescue were Perez and Jordan Parson.
Centralia Police Operations Lieutenant Steve Whritenour is grateful to the Centralia Fire Department, Lifestar Ambulance and United Medical Response ambulance crews, and SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital emergency room staff for excellent care for the injured officers.
Perez says the fire in the kitchen at the center part of the home is believed to have started under the sink and then spread, filling the house with smoke and blocking the residents’ only way of escape since the front door had been boarded shut.Perez says the fire was pretty well contained to the kitchen but firefighters had to remove smoke from the home and attic. Overall, he said the damage was relatively minor.
The Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office was called to the scene to help determine the cause of the fire.
Due to the entrapment, a call immediately went out for all off-duty Centralia City Firefighters and the Centralia Fire Protection District to report to the scene. Sandoval Firemen stood by at the Centralia Fire Station in the event of another fire. Lifestar Ambulance and United Medical Response both sent two units to the scene.
The fire call came in at around 10 Tuesday night. Most firemen had cleared the scene by midnight, with some investigation continuing until around two a.m.
The front door of the home was boarded up and firemen had to break into it. Photo by Tim Ferguson.
