It'll likely be at least mid-August before the cause of the fire which razed five homes in West Lafayette's Lindberg Village neighborhood is released.
Wabash Township Fire Chief Ed Ward, reached by phone Monday morning, says as many as a dozen investigators are now slated to gather on August 12 -- a full month after the fire started -- to survey the scene.
Some of those will be state and local officials, but others will represent insurance agencies for the homeowners and for businesses, such as Vectren, which supplies natural gas to the neighborhood.
Some events, such as a gas leak, have already been ruled out as possible causes.
It took the work of five firefighting agencies to quell the blaze, which burned for approximately two hours on a Friday afternoon last month. No one was hurt, though one firefighter did go to the hospital due to heat exhaustion.
Ward says this investigation is taking considerably longer than most fire inquiries, and state fire marshal's office officials agree the complexity of a five-structure fire (and the number of people required to look into its causes) increases the length of time needed to schedule and complete such a survey.
