{"id":33891,"date":"2023-05-23T17:47:29","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T23:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-south-maple-fire-in-cortez-remains-under-investigation\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:14:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:14:40","slug":"update-south-maple-fire-in-cortez-remains-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-south-maple-fire-in-cortez-remains-under-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: South Maple fire in Cortez remains under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Furniture
Furniture and a guitar salvaged from a room that caught fire Sunday, May 21, at 240 S. Maple St. in Cortez. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The cause of Sunday\u2019s fire on South Maple and Third Streets remains under investigation, according to Battalion Chief Rick Spencer of the Cortez Fire Protection District.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure we can find a definitive cause,\u201d Spencer told The Journal.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the incident report from the Cortez Police Department, an officer found what appeared to be a butane tank and copper wire near the area of the fire. However, the resident of the home on Sunday told a Journal<\/em> reporter that he believed a coffee pot might have caused the blaze.<\/p>\n

\"Fire
Fire and police officials stand in the doorway of the home at 240 S. Maple St. on Sunday, May 21. (The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

According to the police report, the residents of the home are Chad Damron and Craig Black. Damron was the only one home at the time of the fire. He was seen \u201climping out of the house\u201d and was later taken to the hospital for injuries to his leg and possibly his feet, the police report stated.<\/p>\n

The owner of the house, Leila Hanson, was worried for Damron and reported that he also had a dog, said police officer Joseph Yen. No dog was found at the residence, Yen reported.<\/p>\n

Seventeen responders from fire departments in Lewis-Arriola, Dolores, Mancos and Cortez attended the call Sunday about 2:38 p.m., according to Spencer.<\/p>\n

Spencer reiterated that the blaze was \u201ckept to the room where it started,\u201d and while there was smoke damage to the entire house, \u201cthe structure was not a loss,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good job on everyone\u2019s part,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The residents will be able to reoccupy the house once it has been cleaned.<\/p>\n

Spencer reported that the Cortez Fire Protection District has been increasingly busy over the past five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, we ran just over 3,400 calls,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018I\u2019m not sure we can find a definitive cause,\u2019 says chief<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82393,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33891\/revisions\/82393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33891"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}