Photo: dvs/FlickrEmployees from TouchDown Services in Joliet, Illinois, were finishing up some yard work on Friday morning when they noticed black smoke coming from a house in Morris, Illinois.
Nick Christopher, Dennis Fau and Casey Knight knew that the smoke was too dark for it to just be wood burning and decided to go check.
“We cut a couple properties in Morris and we had just finished one when we (saw) smoke coming from the house,” Knight told The Herald-News. “I said, ‘It doesn’t seem right,’ so we went to investigate.”
The crew spotted a couple and two dogs on the roof and found that the house was on fire but the fire department hadn’t arrived yet.
Knight backed the work truck and trailer into the driveway while Fau set up a ladder and Christopher helped get the family off the roof.
“This was a very fast-moving, dangerous fire that could have had a different outcome had the family not been able to self-rescue themselves to the roof and the passersby stopping to rescue them from the roof,” the town’s fire chief said in a press release.
When the firefighters arrived shortly after the family made it off the roof, the first floor was engulfed in flames and fire was venting from windows at the rear of the home. The blaze was brought under control in about 15 minutes.
Thanks to the landscaping crew, no one was injured. Damage was estimated at $300,000.
