UPDATED Friday, February 15, 2013--5:45p.m.
MIDDLETON--"I came home to meet a furniture repair man, I was supposed to meet him here at noon and I couldn't figure out why I could smell smoke in the house, outside," said Robert Conhaim, who lives on Voss Parkway near where the fire was on Friday morning. "I looked all through my house, couldn't find anything. Walked out in the backyard, could see smoke coming up a chimney, I couldn't figure out what it was."
That's when he checked out the neighbor's house. "I walked around and then started seeing smoke coming out of the side of the house and knocked on the door, could see smoke coming through the deadbolt. That's when I dialed 911," he said.
Fire crews got the call a little after 11a.m. Neighbor Cal Stanisch saw them arrive and said he watched as they had to break down the front door. "For the first 20 minutes it was dark and white smoke, but then probably about 40 or 30 minutes into it the flames were shooting out of the front windows," said Stanisch.
Crews were still trying to put out hot spots a few hours after the call came in.
No one was home at the time of the fire, though neighbors said a couple and their three young kids live there."It's extremely unfortunate, it's very sad," said Conhaim. "They're going to be displaced for a while....I'm just sorry this happened to them, they have young kids you know, it's going to be very traumatic."
A Middleton Fire Department spokesman said they are conducting an investigation.
He thinks it will wrap up sometime Saturday; they're having to prolong it due to structural instability.
He also said they don't yet have an estimate on how much damage was done.
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Posted Friday, February 15, 2013 --- 12:27 p.m.
Crews are at the scene of a fire in Middleton.
The call came in to dispatch at 11:26 Friday morning for a fire on 7505 Voss Parkway.
We have a crew there, and will bring you the latest information as it is available.
