Every day, firefighters risk their lives trying to keep us safe, but in Macon, blighted homes make their job even harder.
“It’s a problem for us,” Battalion Chief Ronnie Napier said. “It’s the blight that’s all over Macon. You’ll find people that are living in houses that are vacant, that have no power, electricity, or gas and they keep warm the best they can.”
He says, many times, fires they start inside homes get out of hand. Already this year, Macon-Bibb firefighters have battled fires at 15 blighted homes. In 2017, they responded to 64 vacant home fires, and they battled 42 blighted blazes.
“These vacant houses sit here for years and years with no maintenance,” Fire Investigator Ben Gleaton said.