Fire broke out early Friday afternoon at the vacant Friendship Nursing Home at 1,000 Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in Centralia.
Centralia Fire Investigator Jordan Parson was on the first truck to arrive at the scene.
“The northeast corner of the building was well involved. We started to get set up for a quick attack from the outside and it ran through the ductwork of the building and the attic space. At that point we had aerial showing up so we could get water flowing from above it… nobody ever went interior of the building.”
Parson says Ameren saw the smoke and arrived quickly to turn off power. Firemen also had concern over oxygen bottles still in the building.
Multiple fire departments are on the scene providing mutual aid to the Centralia City Fire Department. They are the Centralia Fire Protection District, Sandoval, Odin Salem, Mt. Vernon, Jefferson Rural, and Iuka.
The fire alarm was first sounded around 12:30 when smoke had initially been seen in the neighborhood of the building.
No word yet on the cause of the fire. We’ll have further details as they become available.
