AMES – A house fire in Ames over the weekend claimed a man’s life.
Ames firefighters responded to a house fire just after 11 p.m. on Sunday that took the life of one of the residents. The name of the man is not being released pending identification by the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner. Two other men who lived in the home, located at 1322 Illinois Ave., were able to escape by jumping out second floor windows. Carl Boese, 27, and Lin Yang, 26, were taken to Mary Greeley Medical Center for treatment.
Upon arrival at the scene, firefighters found the house fully involved. Fire crews took a defensive fire attack from the exterior of the structure due to the amount of fire. Fire Chief Shawn Bayouth said extra firefighters were called in to battle the blaze, which took several hours to contain.
The cause of the fire is still being investigated by the State Fire Marshal and the Ames Fire Investigation Team. There are no damage estimates at this time.
Fire fatalities are rare, however having operating smoke detectors on every level of a home cuts in half the risk of dying in a home fire, Bayouth said. “This is a tragic situation, and we never want to see this happen again. I encourage every Ames resident to install new smoke detectors, change the batteries in their smoke detectors or check their hard-wired smoke detectors today.”
