By Michael Broihier
Stanford City firefighters were dispatched to 520 Danville Ave. at 10:48 pm Tuesday in response to the report of a structure fire.
When they arrived, the abandoned home was fully involved. It took over an hour to extinguish the blaze that largely gutted the two-story wood-frame house and collapsed the roof in the back half of the house.
McDaniel said that firefighters from Lincoln County Stations 1, 2 and 4 responded to assist city firefighters in extinguishing the blaze.
Stanford Fire Chief Ken McDaniel was at the scene Wednesday morning with Kentucky State Police Fire Investigator Pat Alford who suspects arson to be the cause of fire. As the IJ went to press, Alford had not begun to dig in to the heavy work of an arson investigation, but the fact that the house was abandoned, there was no power to the property and there were multiple points of ignition all indicating arson.
The house on an overgrown lot across the street from the Golden LivingCenter had been unoccupied for some time and had been stripped of doors and windows. First Southern Bank, which held an unpaid mortgage on the property, had bought the property back at auction and it stood empty.
Alford, who investigates arsons in eleven counties said that arson is a problem in Lincoln County. "I have three problem children, Lincoln, Estell and Jackson counties," he said. In the last 12 months there have been at least 60 bona fide structure fires in Lincoln and almost half of them have been suspected arson fires. Alford currently has around 20 open arson investigations ongoing in Lincoln County.
The Kentucky State Arson Task Force is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an arsonist in any fire. The phone number for the task force is 800-27-ARSON.
