Sunday morning northeast Columbia fire response was delayed by faulty information from caller
Melissa Houston
COLUMBIA, Mo (KMIZ)
One Sunday morning, a fire broke out at a home at the corner of Tara Lane and Hominy Creek Trail in northeast Columbia.
Columbia Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer told ABC 17 News there was a temporary delay in finding the home after dispatchers were given incorrect information about its location. The initial call was made at 4:27 a.m. from around Hillsdale Road, where the caller believed smoke was coming from behind the Links Apartment Complex on Clark Lane.
Columbia Fire Station 5 was called to the location at 4:30 a.m., and at 4:31 a.m., another call reported seeing “lots of thick smoke across from I-70 near the trail behind the links,” according to a dispatch call log.
Crews initially thought the fire could have been a natural fire outside, but quickly learned after the second call that a home had caught fire and crews from Station 4 were sent.
At 4:34 a.m., Station 5 firefighters arrived to the initial call area, but then found the smoke appearing south of Interstate 70, which led to a third fire station to send crews. Another caller reported a fire at 4:39 a.m. at Tara Lane.
At 4:40 a.m., there was another caller reporting a house fire with trees involved, and all units were sent over to Tara Lane. At 4:48 a.m., crews arrived at the property and started fighting the fire a minute later.
“The challenge was the number of callers that we had reported the fire on the other side of the interstate,” Schaeffer said.