BARN BURNS IN RIDGEVILLE

TMC NEWS STORY & PHOTOS / BRIAN WOODS

North Ridgeville – Fire Officials say that one Firefighter suffered a minor injury to his elbow Tuesday afternoon while battling a fire in a barn on Avon Belden Road.

Dave Dudik said he was walking his dog just after 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon when he smelled smoke. While investigating where the smell was coming from he spotted smoke coming from a neighbor’s barn at 5490 Avon Belden Road. “I ran up to the barn and I could feel the heat coming off of it – extremely hot. I then went up to the house and started banging on the door to alert them to the fire but nobody was home at the time.”

Bernice Pelot, another neighbor, said she called 9-1-1 after also smelling then seeing the smoke pouring from the barn.

North Ridgeville Firefighters responded and began fighting the blaze with both water and special foam. Firefighters also had to cut out sections of the metal barn to ventilate it and to have access points to fight the fire.

Firefighters from Avon, Elyria and Sheffield Village assisted North Ridgeville in extinguishing the blaze that caused an estimated $60K in damages to the barn and its contents.

Officials do not believe there was any foul play in Tuesday’s blaze; instead they believe a “heat source” was too close to combustibles. The Department is currently investigating to determine the exact cause.

Dudik said that it was impressive watching the Firemen work. “It was really nice seeing the guys from all the different Departments working side by side like that. They did a great job.”


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