Rantoul Fire Department battles two commercial fires in two days

Rantoul. (WICS,WCCU) — The Rantoul Fire Department has battled two fires so far this week.

On Tuesday, at a Burger King and another one on Wednesday night at TT Distribution.

The fire at Burger King started on the grill and spread to the ceiling.

No one was hurt but the fire did cause damages up to $100,000.

The Rantoul Fire Department, along with several other crews, responded to a call at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday night about a fire.

Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Kaiser said crews had to surround the building from the outside to fight it.

"So between having guys there and having guys back at the station, it was about 2:30 [a.m.] when we called the fire for being out," Kaiser said. "Then at 6 o'clock this morning we had a hotspot that we had to extinguish and put more water on."

The department said the building was a total loss.

They're estimating damages to the building at $1 million dollars.

While the State Fire Marshal said the cause of the fire is undetermined, Assistant Chief Kevin Kaiser said they do know where it started.

"The origin of the fire is around the wood-burning stove area and the flue that went up through the roof for the wood-burning stove," Kaiser said. "I can't say with a 100 percent certainty that the cause of the fire was the flue, but definitely the origin was in that area."

Kaiser said the untimely second fire did prove to be a challenge.

"You know we had some guys that were still out of town or gone because of being volunteers not on a shift like at Champaign or Urbana full-time department, but we're also lucky enough too that we live in a central area with area departments that within 10 to 15 minutes they can be in town."

Four other departments including Paxton, Thomasboro, Gifford, and Ludlow came to help.

Kaiser said even with the two recent commercial fires, they're still equipped to handle any blaze in the city.

"Our training officers and command staff are really top-notch and the guys are very dedicated," Kaiser said. "We do a lot of training throughout the month and throughout the years and the city is gracious enough to keep us well stocked with equipment."

The volunteer fire department has 30 volunteers on staff.