I saw this article in the local paper, so I figured it was okay to talk about the fire now.
We were toned out around 0351 for a structure fire. Several of us responded on the first page. I rolled Engine-1 as the driver, and we also rolled Tanker-1. We were more than 2 miles away from the address but could see an orange glow lighting up the eastern sky. We knew it was going to be a big one if it could be seen from the main road. After a second tone out, Engine-2 was also dispatched to the scene. Neighboring towns of Golinda and Lorena also sent appartus and fire personnel to help attack the fire. We were on scene for approximately 6 hours. Alot of that was mop up to ensure the fire was completely out. We did not get called back to the house, so we did an excellent job the first go round. It took almost 2 hours to put all the equipment back in service. See? I told you after the fire is the hardest part! I didn't get home until close to 12:30 pm and I was completely wiped out!
The article below sums up what the family had left after the blaze was extinguished. Although there was no HUMAN loss of life, many household pets perished in the fire. Very sad..please keep this family in your prayers.
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Family devastated by fire vows to rebuild
Friday, January 04, 2008
By Wendy Gragg
Tribune-Herald staff writer
The two girls picked through the charred remains of a teenager’s bedroom. They walked carefully across insulation littering the floor like burned marshmallows, turning over items, looking for something that survived the blaze — a blackened Robinson High School ring, a smoky blue letter jacket.
“There’s my diploma. It’s pretty much intact,” said Katie Franks, 18, to her friend Jaclyn Randolph.
Katie and her family lost nearly everything in the fire that destroyed her grandparents’ Robinson home early Sunday.
“My whole life was up here,” she said, looking around her dark room.
She was calm, though, as she looked at the melted 32-inch television and the ruined stereo. Her eyes paused on the huge chunk of ceiling that now covers her bed. She and Jaclyn, 17, had been sleeping in the room when the house caught fire.
Homeowners Butch, 56, and Linda House, 53, said the fire started between 3:30 and 4 a.m. in the ceiling above the back porch of their 3,250-square-foot home. Linda saw the fire first and alerted Butch, who burned his back and the bottoms of his feet trying to put out the flames.
“It was so engulfed. I couldn’t do anything with it,” Butch said.
His yells woke up Katie and Jaclyn, who could see the fire from Katie’s upstairs bedroom. On their way out, the girls grabbed Katie’s aunt Tiffany, 28, who walks with crutches, and helped her outside. Katie’s 13-year-old sister, Ashlyn, also made it outside safely, but a Jack Russell terrier named Molly, a three -legged dog named Ladybug and three cats died in the fire. The Houses’ 35-year-old daughter, Shalaine, was staying in a house where Linda’s mother, Jona Owens, lives, behind the house that burned.
One Christmas present survived the fire: Tiffany’s miniature dachshund puppy, who goes by the apropos name of Lucky.
“I got outside and thought, ‘Oh my God, where’s the puppy?’ ” Linda said. She raced back into the house, grabbed the tiny black dog from the playpen where they kept it, and got out of the house.
The Robinson Volunteer Fire Department responded to the blaze, but Butch said the house and its contents have been declared a total loss. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Sad remnants
Their home, sitting neatly behind a white picket fence and tucked behind generous landscaping, looks almost untouched from the road.
But the back is a gaping black hole. The heat twisted metal, melted glass and sent ripples through the metal roof.
Inside are sad remnants of the antiques Linda has spent her life collecting. Phantom shadows of once artfully placed pictures and wall sconces mark the singed brown walls.
Soot covers the hardwood floors that once made her proud, and dirty drip marks cover nearly everything, a result of the fire department trying to douse the flames.
The family had lived in the home for seven years. Butch, a construction supervisor, said their home was a labor of love. The family’s 6 1/2 acres were once a dairy farm.
The house was built around the remains of the dairy’s century-old farmhouse.
It took them a year to complete the house. Linda, who runs a cleaning business, has continued to decorate it, making every inch of it a home.
For now, eight family members are staying in Linda’s mother’s house.
Butch said the insurance company is going to move a couple of travel trailers to the property for them to stay in.
“We want to keep everybody at home,” Butch said.
Butch and Linda see the fire as an exclamation point on an already difficult year.
“2007 was a year from hell,” Linda said.
Butch had a triple bypass in September. Shalaine, who was already sick, was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia after the fire and was released Wednesday.
The family is sad at the loss of their possessions, but Linda said she has gained a new perspective: She plans not to hold onto every “thing” that comes into her life.
Katie is calm and pleasant as she scavenges for something to save from her fire-ravaged room. Her family is more important to her than worrying about her burned game systems.
‘I can’t be selfish’
“I know I’ve gotta be there for the family. It was an overall loss. I can’t be selfish,” she said.
Katie said she is optimistic about 2008. She has signed up for classes at Texas State Technical College, where she hopes to become a video game programmer.
“There’s only one way to go and that’s forward,” said Butch, who plans to spend 2008 rebuilding his home.
He added, “We’re gonna build back, and it’s gonna be as good as ever.”
