Wednesday's Internet Edition, September 08, 2010.
escape house fire
on Church Street
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Charles Stewart cuts hay on Lick Fork during a sunny summer afternoon down on the farm. |
Publisher - Two families managed to escape when a home in downtown Spencer was gutted by fire early Thursday.
The residence at 505 Church St. owned by Don Gill was remodeled into two apartments. Firefighters said the two-story house sustained an estimated $75,000 in damages.
Melody Ryan lived in one of the apartments with her 20-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son.
She said she feels fortunate her family could escape, including her son, who is blind and epileptic.
Ryan said she was sleeping on a couch in the living room and was awakened by her daughter and son when they entered the room a little after 2 a.m. She told them to get their blankets and sleep on the floor.
About 20 minutes later, she found the bedroom on fire where her two children had been sleeping.
“I woke up about 2:40 and saw the ceiling fan blowing smoke down,” she said.
She also noticed a flickering light coming from the dining room, and when she went to investigate, found flames coming from her daughter’s bedroom.
“I ran in there and her whole bedroom was on fire,” Ryan said.
Ryan said she and her family managed to escape with only her keys, cell phone, wallet and her son’s medication.
“We just got out the door with what I could carry in my hands. We didn’t even have shoes on,” she said. “I lost everything I had in there.”
But Ryan said she didn’t lose what was most important to her.
“Luckily, my daughter and son wanted to sleep in the living room that night,” she said.
The fire started in a wall next to her daughter’s bed, Ryan said.
“I’m just thankful they were not in there,” she said. “Her head would have been about a foot from that wall.”
Ryan said there was not even an electrical outlet in the wall where the fire broke out.
“It must have been in the wiring or something,” she said.
The occupants of the other apartment, Amber Boggs and Steven Browning and their 2-year-old son, also escaped, although the damages in their apartment were not as severe.
Fire damages were confined to a few rooms, but the home had smoke and water damage throughout.
Firefighters were on the scene for nearly five hours, including eight members of Spencer-Roane Volunteer Fire Dept., four from Clover-Roane VFD and two from Reedy VFD. Five fire trucks responded.
A SRVFD spokesman said Tuesday the cause of the fire had not been determined.
