"It wasn't safe. It was wicked out there," says Ann Reishus, an Oldsmar Fire Rescue fire prevention specialist, referring to the storm.
By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Published September 10, 2004
OLDSMAR - Firefighters thought they had extinguished the blaze at 105 Buckingham Ave. when they left the house early Monday morning.
The typical procedure after a fire calls for an engine company to stay on the scene to put out any new fires that spark. An inspector would come by soon afterward to investigate the cause of the fire.
But with Frances coming through the Tampa Bay area, firefighters couldn't go ahead with the usual procedure, according to fire rescue workers.
The fire rekindled, and around 4 a.m. neighbors called 911. Flames were shooting out from the damaged house toward the house next door.
"The storm made it very bad for us to get in there and do a lot of stuff," said Oldsmar Fire Rescue EMS coordinator Aaron Gonzalez, who responded to both fires. "We couldn't stay on scene for any length of time."
Winds of more than 50 mph whipped through the air. Trees crashed onto neighboring homes.
"It wasn't safe. It was wicked out there," said Ann Reishus, fire prevention specialist for Oldsmar Fire Rescue. "Probably the worst time that someone's house could have caught on fire was during that storm."
The firefighters returned and eventually put out the second fire, which left the house a blackened shell.
"It was bad after the first time," said Shelagh LaMorder, 26, who owns the 61-year-old house. "The second time pretty much ruined it."
LaMorder said her father, Herbert LaMorder, 60, lived in the house but was not home during the fires.
The family is grateful that no one was seriously injured, Shelagh LaMorder said, and that firefighters were able to stop the fires from spreading.
"We can't be upset with people who were out in a hurricane trying to save our house," she said.
Figuring out what caused the fire will be difficult, said Reishus, who began an investigation Wednesday morning. Damage left behind by the storm makes collecting evidence a harder task.
"The problem is it was left so long," she said. "I don't know that we'll have any concrete evidence or anything like that."
Reishus said evidence did not point to any negligence on the part of firefighters.
"I'm going to keep looking into it little by little by little, and maybe should the situation ever arise again we'll be better able to handle something like that," she said.
Reishus has not yet estimated the cost of damage to the home.
Shelagh LaMorder said many of the items inside were priceless, like her father's tools or the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls she played with as a child.
At Wednesday night's City Council meeting, Mayor Jerry Beverland praised firefighters for braving the storm to make sure the neighborhood was safe.
"That house was gone. They were making sure the other houses in that area did not catch on fire," said Beverland, who watched firefighters put out the second blaze. "The sky was full of sparks and cinders."
During the meeting's public comment session, Oldsmar resident Amy Poteet, who lives just a few blocks away from the site of the fire, said residents were grateful for the firefighters' help.
"Those guys worked very hard on that house," she said. "Some of us were holding the flashlights for the firefighters as they were putting the hoses together."
