Sigel Handles House Fire, Deals w/Power Outage

Friday has been busy in the village of Sigel.

Sigel firefighters were called out to a house on fire at 5:43am. The rural structure owned by the Van Sant brothers burned along with an attached garage. Sigel Fire Chief Dave Koester said a passeby going to work notified authorities of the fire. Koester said he was the first one on scene and said, "The house was totally down inside the basement." He said they were going to call Neoga firefighters for assistance, but said the structure was already a total loss.

Koester said no one was living in the house, but it was being rehabilitated. The State Fire Marshal sent a representative to look over the scene. Koester said there was no electrical service active to the house.

No one was injured in fighting the fire. Koester said he and the Fire Marshal's representative were the last to clear the scene about 11:15am Friday.

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The Town of Sigel also dealt with a power interruption that occurred about 1:20pm Friday.

Koester said the wind blew the main power line into town enough to cause it to short out, knocking out electrical service to the entire village. Ameren crews restored service about 2:30pm.