Inventory a loss, but plan already in place to return to business

A fire declared electrical in origin resulted in a pair of visits from the Waukon Fire Department to the upstairs apartment portion of the Howards Home Furnishings building located at 40 West Main Street in downtown Waukon during the middle of last week. An initial call was received just before 4 a.m. Wednesday, June 25 when an occupant of one of the apartments housed above the furniture store discovered smoke in her residence toward the rear of the building, with Waukon firefighters having to open both the ceiling below and roof above a hallway attic space near the back of the building to douse the flames. The Waterville Fire Department and the aerial truck from the Decorah Fire Department were also summoned for availability as precautionary measures.
The following morning, Thursday, June 26 at approximately 9:45 a.m., the Waukon Fire Department was called once again as the blaze rekindled once electrical service was restored. Due to the smoke damage from the two incidents, the apartments have been vacated and the lower level showroom for the business will not be open to the public until further notice. Although untouched by flames, all the home furnishing inventory on the lower levels of the business is being replaced, as business owner Randy Van Ruler says, "I am not taking the chance of anything I sell smelling like smoke from this fire, I won't do that to my customers. We can't currently service customers within our store while we're cleaning up and repairing our building, but we'll still try and help them any way we can and will definitely be back in business." Photo courtesy of the Waukon Police Department.