A man died in a house fire early this morning in Cedar Rapids. Dave Coach, a spokesman for the Cedar Rapids Fire Department, says a 9-1-1 call came in at about one o’clock, reporting a fire in a bedroom. Coach says fire fighters were at the scene within four minutes. They went inside the house, found the man, and pulled him to out. The victim was taken to a local hospital, but doctors said he was dead. Coach says an investigator is trying to determine the cause of the fire. The name of the victim will be released around noon today. Coach says the home may be a total loss. “The home from the outside doesn’t look too bad, but inside there’s significant heat damage throughout,” Coach says. “There (is) fire damage to two of the rooms inside. As far as (being) structurally-sound, I’m not sure if they will try to repair this house or take it down.” A middle-aged woman did escape from the home this morning. “She actually called 9-1-1 from a neighbor’s house,” Coach says. This is, by the way, Fire Prevention Week, and fire officials are urging folks to check to ensure smoke detectors are in working order. Investigators are trying to determine whether the smoke detectors inside the fire-gutted home in Cedar Rapids were working. They’ve found one smoke detector on a wall. The woman who escaped says she did not hear a smoke detector’s alarm, and fire fighters say they did not hear an alert when they entered the home either.
