{"id":163632,"date":"2023-03-02T23:10:46","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T04:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=163632"},"modified":"2023-03-03T04:55:01","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T09:55:01","slug":"rockford-fire-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2023\/03\/02\/rockford-fire-under-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockford fire under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>VW independent staff<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ROCKFORD &#8212; The cause of Wednesday\u2019s early morning fire in downtown Rockford is unknown and the State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office is investigating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fire destroyed DJ\u2019s Auto Repair and Wildfire Bar and Grill in the 100 block of N. Main St. Both buildings were over 100 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Rockford Fire Department was initially dispatched to the scene in the 100 block of N. Main St. at 1:45 a.m., after a passerby noticed flames coming from the former bar. Ohio City was called for mutual aid five minutes later, followed 10 other fire departments \u2013 Mendon, Celina, Chattanooga, Chickasaw, Coldwater, Montezuma, St. Henry, Van Wert, Wilshire and Wren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Rockford-fire-II-3-1-2023-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-163633\"\/><figcaption>The Rockford Fire Department was one of 11 fire departmetns on the scene of Wednesday&#8217;s fire in downtown Rockford. <em>Bob Barnes\/VWFD photographer<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Each of the fire departments came to the scene with a tanker, and Rockford Fire Chief Rob Belna said at one point, over 75 firefighters were at the scene and numerous ladder trucks were used to douse the flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Belna said the blaze brought under control within a few hours, and he said firefighters drained the village\u2019s water towers while fighting the fire, leading crews to shuttle water from the St. Marys River and a nearby creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rockford firefighters remained at the scene until late Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VW independent staff ROCKFORD &#8212; The cause of Wednesday\u2019s early morning fire in downtown Rockford is unknown and the State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office is investigating it. The fire destroyed DJ\u2019s Auto Repair and Wildfire Bar and Grill in the 100 block of N. Main St. Both buildings were over 100 years old. The Rockford Fire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-11 03:41:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163674,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163632\/revisions\/163674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}