Chief: Crew installing new HVAC unit causes house fire that displaces Hamilton family

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

Before Rodney Bufler went to work Wednesday morning, he left his wife a $6,000 check to pay for their new furnace and air conditioning unit.

She never got an opportunity to pay the workers.

Hamilton Deputy Fire Chief Larry Gassert said the initial fire investigation showed that during the installation of an exterior air-conditioning unit, a crew from an HVAC company accidentally caught bushes on fire that were planted next to the house in the 1200 block of Southern Hills Boulevard.

 

Gassert said the flames caught the home’s vinyl siding on fire, which spread up the side of the house and into the attic.

He called it a “sizable attic fire.”

A large section of the house was damaged, and Bufler was told it may take months before he and his wife are allowed to live in the home again.

Bufler said his wife called him Wednesday morning while he was at work and told him their house was on fire. Bufler said his wife and dog got out of the house safely and Gassert said no firefighters were injured.

After an attic fire in the 1200 block of Southern Hills Boulevard was put out Wednesday morning, Hamilton firefighters tossed ruined items in the back yard. RICK McCRABB/STAFF

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“That’s all I can ask for,” Bufler said while standing in the street. “Everybody is alive. All of that can be replaced.”

Smoke was visible when fire crews arrived, Gassert said. He said it took firefighters about 10 to 15 minutes to extinguish the attic fire.

About 90 minutes after the fire was out, crews were at the house removing burned items from the attic and house, Gassert said.

Five engines from the Hamilton Fire Department responded to the fire and Southern Hills Boulevard was blocked for about 90 minutes.

 

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