Firefighters have been busy chasing weather-related house fires since Monday.

Hall County has responded to at least three fires and Gainesville, one fire, with two of the fires involving people being treated for smoke inhalation.

On Tuesday afternoon, Hall firefighters responded to a blaze in the 6000 block of Old Howser Mill Road off Hubert Stephens Road in North Hall. The caller said a home's furnace was on fire.

Upon arrival, they found a doublewide mobile home with heavy flames, Fire Chief David Kimbrell said.

Firefighters treated one patient on the scene.

The woman was standing in the smoke outside waiting on firefighters to arrive and "her asthma flared up," Kimbrell said.

"Once we moved her to fresh air, she was OK," he added.
A furnace malfunction appears to have caused the fire, with damage estimated at $50,000, Kimbrell said.

Late Monday, firefighters battled a fire at a mobile home in the 9100 block of Skitts Mountain Drive in North Hall
The occupant "stated he had returned from the store to find the living room area on fire," Kimbrell said.

"Investigators discovered a sofa was too close to a gas wall heater and it had ignited."

No one was injured and the mobile home was deemed a total loss.

Hall firefighters also battled a Monday fire in the 2800 block of Athens Highway.

The fire gutted the home, and a man who lived there suffered smoke inhalation. He was flown by a helicopter to Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital, where he was being treated.

Kimbrell said the home's residents were having some problems with the furnace.

He had no further updates Tuesday on that incident.

Gainesville firefighters responded to an early Monday morning fire on Green Street Circle.

"The fire was contained to an area in the crawl space and first floor around the chimney," Fire Chief Jon Canada said.

The residents had left a fire smoldering in the fireplace.

"The best we can tell is those embers got down in the flooring ... and burned an area around the crawl space and around the floor, filling the house with smoke," Canada said.

"The smoke detector is what woke the parents up, and they were able to get themselves and their children out."

On Tuesday, city firefighters "kept the roads hot" responding to sprinkler systems that malfunctioned because of frozen pipes, Canada said.

Bitterly cold temperatures have gripped the area for the past few days.