By Angel Perkins Correspondent
BOURBON — A furnace fire completely destroyed the structure at 304 Maple-wood in Bourbon Friday morning.
Renter Brenda Johnson and her 36-year-old son Erick lived in the home owned by Don Risner for almost six years.
Erick, who has cerebral palsy, was not at home at the time the fire started but was at work at the Marshall-Starke Development Center. Brenda faced the calamity alone and shared her account.

“I was washing dishes when the phone rang and I answered it,” she said. “I thought I smelled something ‘hot’ and looked and found flames in the furnace. I couldn’t tell if they were coming from inside or on the ground at the middle of the furnace but then I called for help.”
Assistance quickly arriv-ed; members of the Bourbon Fire Department, Multi-Township EMS and Bremen Fire Department got the call at approximately 9:15 a.m. and swiftly went to work abating the flames and assisting the situation.
 While the crews fought diligently, the Johnson’s belongings, including much-needed medicines, were lost in the blaze.
Emergency responders from the American Red Cross also speedily tended to Johnson’s needs, assisting her with emergency medical supplies. “I take two kinds of blood pressure medicine,” she said, as well as maintenance prescriptions such as insulin and thyroid medicine for various conditions.
Sitting in a lawn chair across the street and obviously shaken, she was surrounded by concerned neighbors and family members there to offer support and to help her through this difficult transition of being homeless.  Johnson said she had no renters insurance so her entire household of clothing, cookware, toiletries, furniture, curtains and etc. were lost in the fire.
And though what her son and firefighters could salvage from the blaze was meager, it was some of the most “important things,” those items viewed irreplaceable. On the ground surrounding her bare feet were charred photo albums, pertinent contents of a wallet, smoke-covered family Bibles, her late husband Jonathan’s ashes and his and his father’s soot-covered American flags honoring their services in the Armed Forces.
Bourbon Fire Chief Lonny Berkey said he couldn’t comment on the cause of the fire or the dollar amount of the loss, as those details had yet to be determined by their respective professionals, but thanked assisting crews for their help.