Cookeville FD On Scene At North Dixie Apartment Fire Tuesday Morning

Cookeville Fire Department was on the scene for an hour Tuesday morning at approximately 4:22 a.m. to address a crawl space fire at a North Dixie Avenue apartment complex.

Acting Captain Paul Parrish said that it appeared to be a bag of garbage or clothes that had caught part of the subflooring of apartment number six on fire. He said that residents in the complex had told him they had seen people going in and out of the crawl space.

“So it appeared that possibly some homeless people have been using that crawl space as a sleeping area,” Parrish said. “So you may want to be aware of this kind of stuff going on.”

Parrish said that the cause of the fire is still under investigation. He said that there were no injuries and that there was some interior damage.

Parrish said that as the fire got knocked down, they discovered water running from the hot water heater. He said that without the running water from melted wires the situation could have been worse.

“We believe that heat and/or flame may have burnt the electrical wiring in the hot water heater as well as melted the plumbing going into the hot water heater,” Parrish said. “Which happened to be very fortunate because the water coming out actually held the fire in check and didn’t let it get any worse until we got on the scene.”