An entire house burned to the ground Sunday morning thanks to the Addison Township Fire Department.
Firefighters from Addison and Dryden conducted a practice burn using the home at 5700 Rochester Road, south of Bordman Road and north of the Village of Leonard.
Homeowner William Zanetti, operations president for National Coney Island, Inc., originally planned to demolish the structure, but then decided to let the fire department use it for training purposes.
Firefighters used the burn as an opportunity to work on incident management and accountability as well as conduct a water supply drill, according to Addison Fire Chief George Spencer.
Water from three sources was used to fight the blaze ? a seasonal creek from the nearby Addison Watershed Preserve, a pond located on the property and a tanker truck.
With no fire hydrants available in most of the predominantly rural township, Spencer said it’s extremely important to know where your water’s coming from and how to get it.
In a real fire, the chief said any one of those water sources would have been sufficient.