Home explodes in Roodhouse

By Editor | April 6, 2022 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Photo courtesy of Shane Kessinger
The front portion of the home at 901 Morse St. in Roodhouse is laying almost in the street after an explosion in the home, which, thankfully, was vacant at the time, occurred at around 9:20 Sunday morning. No cause for the explosion has been determined yet.

The Illinois State Fire Marshall might want to consider opening a satellite office in Greene County as many times as he has had to come down to investigate fires in the last month.
His latest trip was to a house explosion in Roodhouse that occurred on Sunday morning on Morse St. Prior to that, he was a called to a fatal fire in Greenfield that took the life of an 11-month-old baby and 77-year-old woman on Thursday and on March 8 to the fire that destroyed the Oasis restaurant in Carrollton.

Thankfully, there was no one home at the time of the home explosion at 901 Morse St. in Roodhouse. According to neighbors, the elderly woman who had been living in the house, Ina Little, had been moved recently to an assisted living facility.

Roodhouse Fire Chief Terry Hopkins said his department received the call around 9:20 a.m.

“When we got there, the house was in pieces,” Hopkins said. “The first thing we wanted to do was to get the gas shut off and the meter pulled.”
The 911 call was put in by Shane Kessinger, the neighbor who lives across the street.

“I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes for my daughter and niece who had spent the night and all of a sudden I hear what sounds like a bomb going off,” Kessinger said. “The entire house shook. I didn’t see the initial explosion, just the immediate aftermath of debris flying and ensuing fire. Upon exiting our house, the smell of gas was still very heavy in the air.”

Kessinger got probably the first photos taken after the explosion, showing the entire front of the home almost blown off and almost into the road.
The home also had a basement and Hopkins said the explosion was so great that it blew the foundation blocks out. He has determined the home is a total loss.

The home still had utilities connected to it – both gas and electric even though it was unoccupied at the time of the explosion.

Greenfield and White Hall were called in for mutual aid and Hopkins said his men were on the scene for 4 hours and 15 minutes. Thankfully, there were no injuries to report.
As for the cause of the explosion, Hopkins said:

“All we know is it did explode,” he said. “The investigation from the State Fire Marshall is not conclusive yet. They don’t know why it exploded or what caused it to explode.”