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Family finds blessings mount in fire's wake

By Lisa Buie
Published June 19, 2005

He drives up to the peach-colored house, now tinged with gray. Chair legs stick out of a rectangular trash bin in the front yard. Under a tree, a Servpro worker runs a wet rag over a soot-covered chest of drawers.

Phil Iorio gets out of his red pickup truck. He goes inside the blackened great room to help two women who are taking inventory of what can be salvaged and what is destined for the trash bin.

He lets everyone know he has cold drinks to share in the cooler.

He tries to keep things light as volunteers sift through his family's ruined belongings.

"We're having a fire sale," he says with a grin.

Investigators don't know exactly what started the June 7 blaze that damaged the home on Ravens Brook Road in Wesley Chapel's Quail Hollow neighborhood, but they do know it was accidental. The fire started near the computer desk, investigator Donald Campbell said. It could have been wiring or an outlet.

They also know it had gone on for a few hours before the Realtor from Tampa found his house in flames about 6:30 p.m. The flames that charred the desk had burned out, but the heat and smoke did significant damage.

Still, Phil considers himself fortunate. No, make that blessed. A man of intense Christian faith, he sees this fire as a God thing.

The first blessing was that he, not his wife, Mary, got home first. He sniffed something burning as he walked to the house, but that's typical in a rural area where folks burn debris outdoors. The black on the French door window panes and the beeping of what he later learned were smoke detectors still didn't tip him off.

He opened the door. A hot blast nearly knocked him backward. Quickly, he shut the door and called 911 on his cell phone.

"I was lucky there was no back draft or flash," he said. "That could have blown right up in my face."

The second blessing was that the pets - two dogs and three cats - managed to escape.

The third, and most important, Phil said, was that within 15 minutes friends showed up to help. The stream of support hasn't ended, even nearly two weeks later.

People opened up their homes. One was going on vacation and offered house keys. Others brought food.

After staying with close friends Bill and Cristi Moore, the Iorios and their three teenage children are comfortable in a rental house at Seven Oaks until the home they had spent thousands of dollars remodeling can be rebuilt.

"It's really outstanding to see a community come together," he marveled. "We live in a society that's nothing but me, me, me, me."

That wouldn't describe Phil and Mary.

They are givers. Phil, 44, lives for mission trips. He has helped build latrines in Honduras. He has repaired homes in the mountains of West Virginia. He and Mary have traveled to Cuba, where he has preached to a sister congregation of his home church, St. James United Methodist in New Tampa.

At home, Phil serves on his church's board of trustees, organizes church cleanup days and once served as president of the men's ministry group. He and Mary also assist with children's mission trips. Mary, 43, has led Bible studies in their home.

Phil, my husband and I have have fond memories of chaperoning youth camp together. I'm told he's a fine cabinmate, if you don't mind snoring. He and Mary dream of someday becoming full-time missionaries.

So it's difficult for folks so used to helping others to find themselves needing anything.

Phil admits to wrestling with that but has decided that it's okay to let others care for him sometimes.

He sees this experience as his own personal standoff with evil.

"Satan sees me doing so much good with God's help," he said. "He's trying to stop me. He's trying to break me. But God can take a bad situation and turn it into a good one. I can't wait to see what wonderful things he has planned."

Not that there aren't plenty of down moments.

An antique rocker that belonged to Mary's father is gone. So are treasured photos: one of Mary and her two sisters, another of a grinning Phil at age 9 in his back yard. A third of 16-year-old daughter, Chelsea, with her friends.

Mary got so upset sifting through her burned cookbook collection that she had to leave the house for a while.

And on the way to break the news to Chelsea, who was at camp, a teenager hit the Iorios' pickup in a parking lot, taking out the right taillight.

Phil says he prays when these things get to be too much. And the Sunday immediately after the fire found the family at church.

Several days after the fire, Phil was on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, driving under cloudy skies and feeling sorry for himself.

He did what he normally does in those moments he describes as "weak."

He prayed for strength and guidance. He asked God for a way, right then, "to reach out and touch me, even if it was just parting the clouds."

In about two or three minutes, he felt something hit one side of his face.

It was a sunbeam.

Lisa Buie is the editor of the central/east edition of the Pasco Times. You can reach her at 813 909-4604 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4604. Her e-mail address is buie@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 19, 2005, 00:38:17]