Is There A Link Between All These Downtown Rockford Fires?

As of Thursday morning, there have been 4 structure fires in 2 weeks in downtown Rockford leaving many residents wondering, what gives? 

At about 4:30 a.m. Thursday morning Rockford Fire got a call about heavy smoke coming from the second floor of a vacant building at 614 7th Street in downtown Rockford. Around 6 a.m. the fire was upgraded to a third alarm with fire crews working to protect a bar located next door to the building.

Here is live video of the blaze from WREX:

Two vacant buildings and 2 semi-vacant buildings go up in flames in the time span of two weeks...seems extremely fishy, right? Maybe not, according to what Rockford Fire Division Chief Matthew Knott recently told WIFR.

We always work to make sure these buildings are secured. We make sure that anything that we consider to be dangerous, we post with a red 'X'. But we are keeping an eye on things. Whether or not any of these are related: that, we haven't been able to determine yet. But each one is being investigated.

I know determining the cause of a fire can be an extremely difficult task, but I think we all better be on the lookout for any suspicious activity around Rockford's other vacant buildings. All this fire activity is getting ridiculous, and I worry for the safety of this city's brave firefighters.

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