CFD makes boat rescue
<p dir="ltr"><span>The Chester Fire Department got a valuable piece of unexpected training on Friday night.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Shortly before 8 p.m., the CFD was paged to the report of a 42-foot Chris-Craft pleasure boat that had run aground at mile marker 103 on the Mississippi River.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>CFD firefighters responded with both of their rescue boats.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>"They were at the top of Liberty Chute and the bottom (of the chute) comes out at Rockwood Island," Bert said. "They didn't really run aground. They threw their anchor out at 17 feet and the current pushed them onto a sandbar."</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Bert said there were two occupants in the boat who were not from the area. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation Police is handling the incident.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>No names have been released.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>"We had two conservation police with us who were in the area," Bert said. "We hooked our boat to the front of the (Chris Craft) and pulled them off the sandbar."</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Bert said the CFD is grateful for the help of the Conservation Police.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>"They know the river, we don't," he said. "Especially at night."</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Bert said the Chris-Craft was pulled out into the main river channel and the boat and its occupants continued on their way. No injuries were reported.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>CFD firefighters were back in service at 10:10 p.m.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>In other fire-related news, the cause of the Monday's house fire at 1407 State St. has been ruled "incendiary" - otherwise known as intentionally set - by arson investigator Greg Vestba of the Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>"We kinda thought that when we were looking into it," said Bert, who noted that the determination was released Friday.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>It is the first known arson case in the city since the house fire at 507 Solomon St. in February.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Chester Police Chief Ryan Coffey told the Herald Tribune last week that there were no new developments in that incident.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Bert noted that the State Street house, owned by Jerry Bahr of Carbondale, had the utilities turned back on almost a week before the fire as the house was being prepared to be rented.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>It previously was the residence of the Sneed family, who moved out in March.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>"There was no property or anything in the house," Bert said.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>Firefighters were originally paged out at 3:41 a.m. to the report of a house on fire, but heavy smoke and wind made it hard to determine where it was.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>After arriving on scene, firefighters had to make forced entry through a locked back door. It took about 30 minutes to extinguish the blaze as the house is located less than a block north of the CFD's firehouse.</span>
<p dir="ltr"><span>The Herald Tribune will have more information on both incidents as it becomes available.</span>
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