Fire damages home on Aurora’s East Side; two injured by smoke
Beacon-News Staff July 26, 2012 9:16AM
Structure fire 600 block of College Ave
Updated: August 28, 2012 6:14AM
AURORA — A boy and his great-grandmother were injured in a fire that destroyed the family’s home on the near East Side Thursday morning.
Aurora firefighters responded to a call at the home in the 600 block of College Avenue around 8:50 a.m. Thursday.
The two-story frame house was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived on the scene, according to Aurora Fire Chief Hal Carlson.
Three family members were home at the time. A boy escaped the home through an upstairs window, and neighbors coaxed him to jump from the first-story roof. Carlson said the boy broke his ankle jumping from the home but was otherwise unharmed.
The homeowner and boy’s great-grandmother, Vivian Grissette, apparently suffered severe smoke inhalation, according to Carlson.
“There was a lot of smoke,” Carlson said. “The guys did a good job, they pulled the woman from a first-floor window.”
Both were taken to Provena Mercy Medical Center. Grissette was transferred to another hospital. Because of privacy laws, no condition updates were available.
A third family member escaped out the rear door.
Firefighters had the blaze extinguished within 30 minutes, but not before it burned out much of the house. Most of the home’s windows were broken. Siding on the east side of the home was melted, and firefighters battled the flame and smoke through holes in the roof.
“Almost 70 years our family was in the house, ever since my grandmother came from New Orleans,” said Clarissa Honn, mother of the injured boy.
She and other relatives received calls from family and neighbors that the home was on fire. Neighbors comforted a crying Honn as she got the news that her son had received only a minor injury.
The house is next door to the Aurora Early Learning Center, which was not evacuated. All children were indoors and accounted for, according to staff. The home also is just three blocks from the site of a deadly fire that took six lives in May 2011 on Claim Street.
All of College Avenue was blocked off Thursday morning. The fire investigation unit was on the scene, but it will be some time before the cause is determined, Carlson said
