Grand Island business owner’s home destroyed in fire

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) - A home in southeast Grand Island has been destroyed following a fire early Monday.

The Grand Island Fire Department was dispatched to a house fire at 520 Midaro Drive at 6:07 a.m. The home is the residence of Tom Edwards, the owner of Tommy’s Family Restaurant.

When the first crews arrived, the fire was on the outside of the structure. Flames and smoke could be seen for miles, coming from the home.

One issue for firefighters was there are no hydrants in this area so they had automatic mutual aid from Grand Island Rural as well as Doniphan and Alda Volunteer Fire Departments. They brought in six or seven tankers of water.

“For this fire that is huge, for the city we don’t carry enough water to fight a structure fire without enough hydrants,” said GIFD Division Chief Tim Heimer.

He said the furthest we have to go is two blocks so this is an anomaly in the city. He said there are a few addresses in the city where they have this issue so those addresses are in the computer so automatic mutual aid is called when they are dispatched out.

They were going through about 1,000 gallons of water a minute to fight the fire.

He said the weather conditions weren’t helping either, trying to salt as much as they can as the water was making a pretty good ice hazard.

The fire was contained after about two hours.

Heimer said the home is a total loss, but as far as he knew everyone made it out safely.

He said the next step will to begin the investigation to determine what caused the fire.

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