{"id":76731,"date":"2026-08-19T18:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=76731"},"modified":"2026-08-19T18:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:57:17","slug":"polk-county-fire-rescue-responds-to-highland-city-house-fire-fatality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/polk-county-fire-rescue-responds-to-highland-city-house-fire-fatality\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County Fire Rescue Responds to Highland City House Fire, Fatality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Polk County Fire Rescue crews responded to a house fire in Highland City on Wednesday morning, where they found a fatally wounded adult in the backyard who appeared to have been shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fire Rescue crews were dispatched to the scene at 11:42 a.m. and arrived minutes later. Initial crews found heavy smoke and flames coming from the home. They immediately began an internal attack to extinguish the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While more crews arrived, several other fires started throughout the structure. At the same time, firefighters searching the building found a deceased victim outside the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScenes like this show how unpredictable a fire call can be for firefighters,\u201d said Fire Chief Shawn Smith. \u201cI commend our crews for their work on this scene and offer condolences to the family of the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Florida State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office and Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office are investigating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polk County Fire Rescue crews responded to a house fire in Highland City on Wednesday morning, where they found a fatally wounded adult in the backyard who appeared to have… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDhcL2ltZ19wY2ZyX2xtX2hpZ2hsYW5kX2NpdHlfZmlyZV93aXRoX2ZhdGFsaXR5XzhfMTlfMjZfMTktc2NhbGVkLndlYnA_Zml0PTEwMjQlMkM2ODMmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJQb2xrIENvdW50eSBGaXJlIFJlc2N1ZSBSZXNwb25kcyB0byBIaWdobGFuZCBDaXR5IEhvdXNlIEZpcmUsIEZhdGFsaXR5IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.bSkzfwnziCYcjq9qEsH2KOVFiGoDx5T14wHdugBGBwIMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDhcL2ltZ19wY2ZyX2xtX2hpZ2hsYW5kX2NpdHlfZmlyZV93aXRoX2ZhdGFsaXR5XzhfMTlfMjZfMTktc2NhbGVkLndlYnA_Zml0PTEwMjQlMkM2ODMmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJQb2xrIENvdW50eSBGaXJlIFJlc2N1ZSBSZXNwb25kcyB0byBIaWdobGFuZCBDaXR5IEhvdXNlIEZpcmUsIEZhdGFsaXR5IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.bSkzfwnziCYcjq9qEsH2KOVFiGoDx5T14wHdugBGBwIMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[16284,16286,16285,16283,362,15435,16287,15236],"class_list":["post-76731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-fatality","tag-fire-investigation","tag-florida-state-fire-marshal","tag-highland-city","tag-house-fire","tag-polk-county-fire-rescue","tag-polk-county-news","tag-polk-county-sheriffs-office"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76735,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76731\/revisions\/76735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}