By KATIE JOHNSON
Niles Daily Star

A letter carrier and a repairman were at the right place at the right time Tuesday afternoon when they spotted smoke coming from a house in Niles.

Seventeen-year-old Madysen Aldrich was at her home at 527 North Fourth St. with her Japanese chin dog, Lulu, when a letter carrier and repairman told her she needed to get out of the house.

“Your house is on fire,” Madysen said they told her. “Your attic is smoking pretty bad.”

She lives at the home with her mother, Cyndi Aldrich, and her sister, Coveney Aldrich, 10. Madysen and Cyndi had smelled smoke earlier that morning.

“Me and Mom just didn’t know what to think,” Madysen said.

Cyndi called her landlord, Pete Adams. He sent a repairman, Johnny Collett, to the home.

“I saw the fuse was blown,” Collett said. He left to buy a fuse, and when he returned, he saw smoke billowing from the roof. A letter carrier also saw the smoke and they notified Madysen. Collett then called 911.

“I was impressed, though,” Collett said of the City of Niles and Niles Charter Township fire departments’ response. “Within two minutes, they were here.”

Madysen was uninjured in the fire.

City of Niles Fire Chief Larry Lamb confirmed after an investigation that the cause of the fire was an electrical wire, which started several small fires in the attic.

“There was nothing suspicious or anything like that,” he said. Firefighters used an insulation vacuum, which Lamb compared to “a big leaf sucker,” in the attic.

Lamb explained that insulation “works like a cigarette,” smoldering at a steady pace.

The temperature outside – approximately 90 degrees – was a major concern Tuesday, and firefighters were rotated in and out of the house to recover. Southwestern Michigan Community Ambulance Service was on the scene to assist in firefighter recovery.

Lamb said it was about 200 degrees in the attic, and being a firefighter is essentially having a “snowsuit with a small moped strapped to your back.”