Fire heavily damages Columbus Avenue home

SANDUSKY — What seemed at first like a routine house fire on Columbus Avenue early Saturday afternoon turned tense when firefighters learned children might be inside. Firefighters rushed a rescue crew inside the burning home, but quickly developed that all of the children were safe and none were inside the home, said Capt. Adam Butler of the Sandusky Fire Department. The fire department, aided by a Perkins Fire Department crew, were called at 12:06 p.m. Saturday to a house fire at 1522 Columbus Ave., Butler said. The homeowner is April Rowe, and she has six children.The fire crews were on the scene for about five minutes, dealing with the fire, when "this woman comes running up to me, her kids are still in there," Butler said. "When the mom came running up, it kind of put a kink in it." Rowe had left the house with three of her daughters, but two sons were still inside when she left.Butler had searchers rush inside the house. The Perkins firefighters helped put out the fire. Fortunately, the missing kids showed up at the scene and it turned out they had not been in the house, Butler said.Firefighters knocked out the fire in about 20 minutes, but the house suffered fire and heat damage in the first floor and in an addition in the back, and also sustained smoke damage on the second floor.The fire is believed to have begun in the kitchen. There was a stack of pizza boxes on the stove and a burner was in the "on" position."It might have accidentally been bumped," Butler said. "It doesn't seem like it was anything but an accident."Butler described the home as a single family, two story residence with an addition in the back, and living quarters in an attic which serves as a third story. Smoke was pushing out of the house when firefighters showed up, and fire was coming out of some of the windows. Firefighters prepare to enter the second floor of a house to battle a fire within. The house, in the 1500 block of Columbus Ave, caught fire midday Saturday.Smoke billows from a house in the 1500 block of Columbus Ave. Sandusky Fire Department arrived on scene and quickly set about to extinguishing the blaze.Firefighters work to extinguish a house fire in the 1500 block of Columbus Ave on Saturday afternoon.