The Pana Fire Department responded to a report of a downtown structure fire at 106 East Second Street in Pana around 1:18 on Sunday afternoon. Pana Fire Chief Rod Bland arrived on the scene to find the building heavily engulfed in smoke and fire. Chief Bland initiated a mutual aid response to the scene with Christian and Montgomery County Fire response agencies being requested.
Chief Bland says that Pana Fire and Ambulance along with fire trucks from Owaneco, Tower Hill, Assumption, Moweaqua, Oconee, and Taylorville all responded. Nokomis and Witt also helped with the Nokomis-Witt Area Ambulance Service rescue unit.
Once ladder trucks from Taylorville and Pana arrived, the fire was quickly brought under control, and the Witt Fire Department helped firefighters ascend to the second floor of the adjacent building to check for any fire spread.
Chief Bland says that he knew what needed to be done and they were able to do it quickly with great support from their partners. The Chief also thought that there might have been an occupant inside, but there wasn’t. This is the second fire in downtown Pana in the last year. There was another fire in a downtown building in the block just to the east that occurred in December of 2020. That fire caused enough damage that the building had to be torn down.
