Fire destroys vacant home

An early morning fire Saturday destroyed a large, unoccupied home in Wadsworth.

“It was a significant fire. It was a total loss,” said Mark Kirschhoffer, fire chief of the Newport Township Fire Protection District.

A neighbor notified the fire department, which arrived at 6:24 a.m. to find the house at 39966 Orchard Bluff in flames. Because that area has no hydrant service, the department used water from tanker trucks, including 10 from 15 responding fire departments in Illinois and southern Wisconsin, Kirschhoffer said.

Firefighters required about 3½ hours to extinguish the fire, the chief added. No one was injured and the fire did not spread to surrounding homes.

Kirschhoffer said the home had been vacant for about a year and officials were trying to contact the owner. He could not place a value on the two-story, 4,000-square-foot home. There was no obvious indication of how the fire started and investigators will be trying to determine a cause, the chief said.