- Wide swath of wetlands between Brooklyn Road and Francis Street was burning Tuesday afternoon
- Black smoke was visible from miles away
- More than ten Jackson-area fire departments kept the blaze from damaging property
- Watch video for footage of fire, neighbor reactions, and firefighter report
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
The smoldering vegetation behind me shows you just how close this fire which broke out earlier today got to this residential neighborhood.
Billowing black smoke visible from miles away...
Local residents say this is not the first time such a fire has broken out in these wetlands.
Neighbor Larry Byrne found out the fire was closing in on his house — and rushed home to be here.
LARRY BYRNE: "There was so much smoke...flames were at times going 10/12 feet high...one of the trees actually — the top of it was on fire. They had to cut that one down."
Benjamin Lindsay and his son saw the smoke from far away. As they got closer, they realized what a close call it was.
BENJAMIN LINDSAY: "Well, we were driving here anyway. We went to a building at the location that was behind and, well, we thought it was closer to downtown and the closer we got to here, the more smoke...and pulled in and there was a fire truck in front of our building and..."
SKY LINDSAY: "...hopped out and ran inside, got the cars and our garbage truck out."
Captain Aaron Osburn of Summit Township Fire Department says that, as bad as it looked, fire crews successfully kept the fire away from residential neighborhoods.
AARON OSBURN: "We ended up with a total of 10+ fire departments in Jackson County — maybe more — and a Calhoun fire company. And then the DNR is out here also. They were pretty on top of it. The Jackson County fire departments did an absolutely amazing job. No structures were damaged, no cars, vehicles, anything like that. So it was a really good day for the community, no doubt."
EARLIER VERSION OF OUR REPORT:
Crews were on the scene of a swamp fire near Brooklyn Road in Jackson this afternoon. Billowing black smoke was visible from miles away.
Your neighborhood reporters Olivia Pageau and Darius Udrys were both on the scene.
Parts of Cooper Street were closed to traffic to allow fire crews unfettered access to a major fire sweeping across the wetlands between Brooklyn Road, St. John's Cemetery, and Park Drive neighborhoods in Vandercook Lake.
Crews from multiple area fire departments worked together to quell the blaze.
Smoke and flames got quite close to a mobile home park in the neighborhood. Residents said they were inundated with heavy smoke and could see flames leaping 15 feet into the air.
But fire crews successfully kept the flames away and eventually extinguished the fire.
We spoke to Summit Township Fire Department Captain Aaron Osburn. He told us the fire was successfully contained, no structures or vehicles were damaged, and that the Jackson-area fire crews called in to battle the blaze performed very well.
Here's video from the scene shot a little after 4 P.M...
The fire could be seen from our traffic cameras on I-94 along Sargent Road...
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