About eight months after losing her mother, Marsi Mabry stood along Barron Road Tuesday morning and watched her mother’s home burn.
A passerby reported smoke at Carol Inman’s house at 2628 Barron Road at about 7:20 a.m.
When the first truck arrived, Capt. Toby Tuggle said, firefighters found heavy smoke at the back of the house.
“The air conditioner looked like where it may have originated from,” Tuggle said.
After the first crews arrived, a full “call back” was issued for additional personnel.
“Something this big and how far gone it was when we get here,” additional firefighters are needed, said Chief Ralph Stucker. “The initial guys were wore out.”
Given the location of the fire, Stucker said, they had to lay 150 to 200 feet of hose, then add a line to that to get around the house. The hose was attached to a hydrant about 150 yards east of the house.
“The initial guys were hustling to get everything in place to hit it” with water, Stucker said.
When the call came in, Stucker said, one shift of firefighters and two trucks from the main station were out on another call.
“They hadn’t made it back to the station; they were told to head this way,” Stucker explained. “We had four trucks almost right off the bat.”
At one point, flames were shooting 12 to 14 feet high through the roof in the center portion of the home and within minutes it caved in.
Stucker said firefighters tried to cut off the fire as it went into the roof, but there were “a couple of different roofs, different pitches, different directions.”
Once the fire got into the home’s attic, the “pitches” created hidden areas allowing the fire to run the length of the structure, Stucker said.
As several firefighters continued spraying water from various locations, other firefighters knelt in the front yard or in the driveway resting and re-hydrating.
Butler County EMS personnel checked out two firefighters who suffered minor injuries. Neither was transported for treatment.
“One had a burn on his shoulder,” explained Battalion Chief Stacy Harmon. “One the ceiling fell and cracked him on the head.”
Harmon said the burn occurred as firefighters were venting the roof, “punching a hole through the roof the fire came through and burned him through his turnout coat.”
The firefighter, he said, suffered blistering.
The other injury, Stucker said, occurred as firefighters were putting water through the roof, Stucker said.
As the water passed through the sheet-rock ceiling, “a big section from the ceiling gave way and hit him,” Stucker said.
Two other firefighters received IV fluids at the scene.
As firefighter Chad Bell rested on the front bumper of one of the trucks parked on Barron Road, Mabry approached and patted him on the shoulder.
As Bell pointed to the right side of the home, he told Mabry it was a “loss,” but the other side “may not look like it, but this side was saved.”
The fire, according to Mabry, was in the kitchen/living room area and the addition, which had been her mother’s bedroom and bathroom.
“I’m just thankful she wasn’t in there; she was a quadriplegic in a wheelchair,” said Mabry. “It could have been pretty bad.”
A visibly shaken Mabry talked about how her mother had lived in the home for about 19 years before her death.
“She passed away in December … I was just here Saturday,” Mabry said. “I told my niece who is visiting from Ohio, there were personal pictures of me and mom to get out.
“I told her this weekend we would do it, and apparently, that is not going to happen.”
Mabry was at work at Parks Animal Care Center on Highway 67 North when a friend stopped in to tell her about the fire.
“I ran over here and the fire department was already here,” she said.
Firefighters remained on the scene until about 11 a.m.
The cause of the fire is under investigation by the State Fire Marshal’s Office.
“It appears to have started where the air conditioner was at; that’s where they are looking at it,” Stucker said.