Cause of Friday night house fire under investigation

The Fort Scott Fire Department is still investigating a fire that broke out Friday night at a vacant house in the 400 block of South Crawford St.

Fort Scott firefighters responded about 9:30 p.m. to a report of a building fire at 416 S. Crawford St. Fort Scott Fire Chief Paul Ballou said Monday the fire began in the upstairs portion of the house and "got into the attic a little."

"It was pretty much all upstairs," he said.

Dave Bruner, deputy fire chief and head investigator for the department, said Monday he is looking into the cause of the fire but nothing has been determined. There are a couple of fire investigators on the department staff.

"We're waiting on contacting the owners and getting more interviews completed," Bruner said.

Ballou said the house is unoccupied but there was one individual inside the house when firefighters arrived and that person was able to get out. He said there were no injuries in the fire.

"The house had previously had a fire," Ballou said. "It's under investigation. There are no utilities to that house."

Bruner said the owner was present at the time of the fire and was "working on the house," but no one had been living there.

The FSFD responded with eight personnel and three trucks, Ballou said.

Bruner said firefighters remained on scene for a couple of hours and had cleared the scene by midnight Saturday.

"A unit stayed overnight to get our investigators there to look at the fire," he said.

In November 2015, the FSFD responded to a fire at the same house, and investigated the cause. At the time, Ballou said the fire primarily did damage in the upstairs portion of the two-story house. He said the fire started in the second story bedroom and caused "a lot of smoke and water damage."

The fire was mainly contained to one room and spread into an upstairs hallway. Firefighters were able to contain that fire before it spread to the rest of the house.

Ballou said the house was occupied by residents at the time of the fire but all were able to get out and no injuries were reported.

Bruner said that fire was determined to be "incendiary" in nature, meaning it was intentionally set, and involved a juvenile. He said investigators are not looking at suspicious activity concerning the Friday fire.

"This time we're leaning toward accidental," he said.