Rural DeKalb County vacant home total loss after fire

SYCAMORE – A vacant home and a garage in rural DeKalb County have been ruled total losses after a fire this week, authorities said.

Firefighters were dispatched to 27965 Glidden Road in Mayfield Township for a reported structure fire at 2:15 a.m. Monday, according to a Sycamore Fire Department news release.

Sycamore Deputy Fire Chief Jim Ward said the single-family home was engulfed in flames when crews arrived. At the time, flames also extended to a separate garage building.

“Sycamore Fire Department stopped the fire to just those two buildings,” Ward said. “There were probably four or five other structures on the property as well, a lot big barns and everything like that. So we had a good stop, and stopped fire from spreading to the rest of the buildings on property.”

No one was injured in the fire. The structure was determined to be abandoned, authorities said. Ward said the cause of the fire is undetermined, pending further investigation.

“Sometimes it’s hard to determine the cause just because of the extend of the damage on this,” Ward said. “So we think it did start in the house, not the garage.”

Assistance was provided by DeKalb, Cortland, Malta, Genoa-Kingston, Kirkland and Elburn agencies among others, totaling 17 other departments.

The fire was extinguished at 4:04 a.m. Monday, fewer than two hours after the call for services went out.

Ward said the operation was a defensive one, because firefighters sought to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings, or from being able to combust flammable gas stored behind the garage.

“One of the big risks was a propane tank that was there, but we were able to kind of keep that cool and not have it get out of control by the propane tank,” Ward said.