No injuries were reported after a blaze destroyed a house in downtown Artesia on Wednesday morning.
Lowndes County Fire Services Coordinator Sammy Fondren said volunteer firemen from Districts 4 and 5 arrived at 101 Railroad Street at 8:19 a.m. to find the multi-resident structure engulfed in flames. With aid from East Oktibbeha County Fire Department, firefighters used five pumper trucks and a tanker to eventually subdue the fire, but the structure was declared a loss. Fondren said about 90 percent of the building, which he estimated to be anywhere from 75 to 100 years old, was damaged.
Fondren said two of the three residences inside the house were occupied by tenants but none of them were there when the fire started.
Five volunteers had to be treated for heat exhaustion, Fondren added. What caused the fire to start has not been determined, he said.
“There was no way for us to put it out,” Fondren said. “We just had to control the exposures and cool it the best we could, so it would be extremely difficult to determine where it started because it burned the whole thing.”
Nathan Gregory covers city and county government for The Dispatch.
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