UPDATED: Chief Says House Fire is Not Suspicious

(Updated 4 p.m.) A fire caused about $150,000 in damage Friday morning to a Brookfield home owned by a financially troubled Pewaukee real estate investor.

The cause of the fire was under investigation. But Brookfield Fire Chief Charlie Myers told Patch: "We do not believe this is a suspicious fire."

Initially reported as a fully engulfed garage fire with a house extension, the fire spread to the house at 16820 Ridgeview Dr., northeast of the intersection of Capitol Drive and Calhoun Road.

Waukesha County real estate records show $24,000 in back taxes are owed on the Ridgeview home, owned by Todd Brunner, whose bankruptcy and real estate woes have been detailed in an investigation by Cary Spivak of JSOnline.com.

According to the Brookfield Fire Department:

Firefighters got a report of a fire at 9:18 a.m. and the first crews on the scene found the garage fully engulfed in flames and the roof partially collapsed.

A dog named "Billy" had alerted two sleeping occupants of the danger, and the three escaped unharmed. But they told firefighters there was a cat inside.

Luckily, the residents did not open the door between the house and the garage to check the extent of the fire, which helped keep the flames from spreading into the house, Myers said.

Firefighters found the cat, which received life support and was taken with the residents to a local animal hospital.

That north-central area of the city does not have municipal water, which made fighting the fire more difficult. "Fire apparatus were close to running out of water from the onboard tank before fire hydrant supply was established," Myers said, by connecting a 1,200-foot-long, large-diameter hose to the closest available hydrant.

The Brookfield Fire Department called in a second alarm and crews from the Town of Brookfield, Elm Grove, Wauwatosa, Butler, Pewaukee, West Allis, New Berlin, Menomonee Falls and Lisbon responded. Waukesha and Sussex fire crews helped man Brookfield's stations for other calls.

Myers praised the mutual aid system.