Detroit firefighters were a little surprised by what they didn’t find inside a burning home on the city’s east side.
The fire took off early Thursday morning at a home on Strasburg Street, in a neighborhood between McNichols Road and Grand River Avenue.
Anita Island said she didn’t see her neighbors running from the home, so she assumed the family was trapped inside.
“I was fitting to run to the front door but my nephew screamed ‘Don’t go there!’ because there was so much flames,” Island told WWJ’s Mike Campbell. “There’s a whole family that lives there. I see them every day.”
Battalion Fire Chief Richard Gainer said crews immediately went into rescue mode as soon as they reached the scene.
“We called and got extra companies because they were adamant, there was a group of people out here saying people were trapped. We’ve got to consider it to be for real, so we did,” he said.
Firefighters battled the flames and went through the house, but ended up finding no one inside. As it turns out, the family wasn’t even home.