Halloween Fire Leaves Murphy Acres Homeowners Of 50 Years Displaced
JOLIET — Fred and Helen Gibson have lived on Cassie Drive in Joliet’s Murphy Acres subdivision since 1974. On Thursday night, after Halloween trick-or-treating ended, their split-level home went up in flames. Helen Gibson told Joliet Patch that she heard a loud noise and eventually realized their garage was the root of the fire.
She and her husband made it outside to safety, and she managed to call 911.
The Gibsons’ home in Murphy Acres is considered Troy Township, even though they have a Joliet street address. The Halloween fire was extinguished by the Troy Township Fire District with help from Joliet and Minooka fire departments. The fire took several hours to put out.
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On Friday, the Gibsons, with the help of several concerned relatives, were going through their house trying to save clothes and other personal belongings and the food stocked inside their refrigerators.
The water damage and smoke damage was enormous, Fred Gibson pointed out.
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Fred Gibson said he was driving their 2019 Hyundai Tucson, and had parked the car inside their garage roughly 30 minutes before the fire ignited. “It was driving just like always,” he explained.
Without a doubt, Fred Gibson said, it was the parked car that ignited on fire, causing the entire garage and upper level of the Cassie Drive split-level to go up in flames.
The Gibsons estimated the fire happened between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.
“The car’s totaled,” Fred Gibson remarked, allowing Joliet Patch inside the fire-damaged smoke-filled house to survey and photography the car and garage damage.
The Halloween blaze has left the Gibsons’ home unsuitable to stay there, Fred Gibson told Joliet Patch as he stood in his driveway.
“We’re going to have to stay at a motel a few days,” he remarked. “There’s lots of water damage to the laundry room and bathrooms. A lot of fire damage, worse than I thought.”
Joliet Patch asked the Gibsons if they planned to establish a GoFundMe, or if they needed help from the Joliet community such as clothes or household items in light of the Halloween fire, but the older couple said they did not need anything for now.
“I can’t think of anything,” Fred Gibson responded. “We’ve been in close contact with the insurance company, and they are going to find us an apartment house. We’ll stay in a motel for a few days. Most of the fire damage was below, down in the garage.
“My wife heard a noise she thought was coming from the attic,” Fred Gibson recalled. “We thought maybe it was a raccoon in there.”
Indeed, there were no raccoons. The loud crackling sound was the fire, and it was spreading rapidly, from inside their lower-level attached garage into the rafters of their upper level.
Fred Gibson said it’s his eventual hope that he and his wife can return to their Cassie Drive home several months from now, if and when their house can be rehabilitated.
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