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Garage fire causes $150,000 damage

Photo

Photo by Dan Lassiter

Janesville firefighters spray hot spots on a burned out garage at 3202 Midvale Drive with a pair of burned motorcycles in the foreground.

JANESVILLE — A two-car garage on the city’s northeast side was gutted by fire Wednesday night resulting in $150,000 damage.

Janesville firefighters from four of the department’s five stations responded at 8:13 p.m. to the 16-unit apartment building at 3202 Midvale Drive.

A column of black smoke could be seen for miles and attracted so many people that the number of “cars made it difficult for one of our vehicles to get through,’’ said Lt. Mike Rundle.

When firefighters arrived on scene, “the garage was fully involved with flames coming both out of the front and the back. Flames also were lapping up the siding of the apartment building behind the garage,” he said.

A complex tenant, who tried to start his motorcycle that had been sitting idle for some time, heard a pop then saw fire coming out of the engine’s carburetor, Rundle said.

“He tried to put out the fire with water but that didn’t help, and also tried to move another motorcycle out of the garage but couldn’t get it out because the fire, fueled by gasoline, spread so quickly,” Rundle said.

Firefighters, who were on scene for a couple hours, were able to knock the fire down quickly, said Tim Ehlers, fire department shift commander.

“A couple more minutes, it would have gotten into the 16-unit building,’’ he said.

Radiant heat melted all of the siding on both the 3202 and 3216 apartment buildings, Ehlers said.

Rundle agreed: “There was a lot of siding damage to the apartment building behind the garage. They might have to replace some roofing and siding on the garage next to the (burned garage), and the siding and soffit will have to be replaced on the apartment building behind the garage.’’