House catches fire for the second consecutive day in Bonita Springs

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla.- A house on Tarpon Way in Bonita Springs caught on fire for the second consecutive day.

The State Fire Marshal was on the scene for hours investigating how that fire started.

Neighbors tell WINK News they called 911 after seeing the flames around 4 a.m. Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the fire started in the kitchen area when a burner was left on. Neighbors say the fire appeared to be in the same place, but Wednesday’s blaze did far more damage.

The home suffered smoke damage but was still livable, which is why the resident was there overnight. Ray Hildreth was sleeping downstairs when the fire happened. “Just shock, I never would have dreamed the thing would have started over again. They got it out before, and it was damaged just basically the kitchen and it was fixable so they were just gonna fix it, and we wake up to this,” he says.

One neighbor tells WINK News he smelled smoke around 10 p.m. Tuesday night, but thought it was just from the fire earlier in the day.

Bonita Springs Fire Chief Joseph Daigle says they are still looking into the fire’s cause. “All of our crews, our battalion chief and the state fire marshal were here and the fire was out at the time so we’re trying to determine what possibly could have started it the second time, if it could have been something that was missed or some kind of other activity.”