A house fire was reported at 780 Lakeview Parkway in Orono around 7 p.m. on Friday, July 13.
Orono Police Department approached the scene and saw smoke on the horizon, indicating that the fire was severe. They sent out a second alarm, which brought in an additional ladder truck and a couple more engines from neighboring departments.
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Photos pulled from Highway 12 & West Metro Community Safety Facebook page.
In total, Long Lake Fire Chief James Van Eyll estimates that there were close to 16 different fire departments responding on scene. He says that this is a few more than usual because the house was part of a new development and there were no fire hydrants in the area.
“Our commander also knew that it was in an area that did not have fire hydrants so we asked for a couple of tanker groups to be paged, so we had those going,” reports Van Eyll. “And by the time he got on scene the whole backside of the house was on fire. The fire had reached up into the attic space of the home and there was smoke coming out of the entire house or the entire structure.