Bill Linsenmeyer was up late packing for a trip the next day on the night of Friday, May 18 when he smelled smoke and heard the sound of breaking glass.
“Normally I have my windows shut and I’m playing music to help me relax and get to sleep,” he said. “Normally I’m not a fan of the night air, but for some reason I had my window open and my music shut off. I don’t know why, but I’m glad that it happened that way. At first from the smell, I thought somebody was having a campfire, but it was just a little off for that, then I heard the sound of breaking glass. I thought that maybe some neighborhood kids were up to mischief, maybe with my camper that’s usually parked on the street, so I went out- side and then saw the fire. I also saw my neighbor, Lyle Christiansen, sitting on his front lawn just three to five yards away from the house. So I ran over there to help him out. I asked him if there was anybody else in the house and he said no, so I got him over to my place, got him a coat and some slippers for his bare feet and a drink of water. Then I went over to my other neighbors who had the house next-door to Lyle’s and were close enough to the fire that it might have spread to them, and pounded on their door and got them up and out too. Meanwhile I’d dialed 911, and I do have to say that the guys at the Fire Department got here pretty quick. This was around about midnight, but they still had really good response time. Again, it’s terrible that this happened, but I’m glad it shook out the way it did, because nobody died, and I’m just glad that I didn’t follow my normal routines for whatever reason, because I might have been too late otherwise.”
This fire came just after the one year anniversary of a fire that destroyed two homes less than a block away on Center Ave., on the Thursday before GHS Graduation in 2017.
