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Passer-by hauls fire away from house

He sees smoke, drives toward it and then findstrash burning in a trailer next to an occupied house.

By THOMAS LAKE
Published June 23, 2006

Michael Dearsman couldn't quench the fire himself. So he did the next best thing.

He moved it.

Dearsman, a 39-year-old concrete finisher, had just dropped his son off for tutoring around 1 p.m. when he saw smoke in the distance.

Something isn't right, he thought.

He eased his Chevy Silverado up Chickasaw Lane, just south of Ridge Road, tracing the smoke to its source. There, in the driveway next to the house, a trash-filled open lawn trailer was engulfed in flames.

The garbage was left over from the family's recent move: old blankets, furniture and magazines - prime ingredients for a blaze.

Dearsman knew he had to separate the trailer from the house before the fire spread. But how?

Then he remembered the rusty chain.

It was nearly 15 feet long and hooked at the ends. It had been in the bed of his truck for about two weeks, ever since he used it to haul his own trailer into position for a tire change.

Dearsman grabbed the chain and walked toward the fire. He wanted to hook it to the trailer's tongue. But the searing heat drove him back. In desperation, he flung it toward the trailer.

The hook caught the edge and stuck. Dearsman hooked the other end to his truck and eased the trailer down the driveway, spilling flaming debris.

Meanwhile, another vigilant stranger happened by: Behader Aljic, a 36-year-old Bosnian immigrant on his way home from the store. He took up a yellow garden hose and sprayed.

Two dogs and four teenaged children were inside the house. One of the children was taking a shower; the other three were napping.

Stephanie Blauvelt, 13, heard the dogs barking and saw an unfamiliar man through the window.

"I'm like - not a good thing to wake up to," she said.

But it would have been far worse if Dearsman and Aljic hadn't intervened.

"If they had not done so," Pasco sheriff's Deputy Matthew Kadel wrote in his report on the fire, which is under investigation as an arson, "there would have been heavy damage to the two-story structure and possible loss of life."

Besides the trash and an evergreen tree by the garage, almost nothing was burned. Loretta Reddy, one of the home's adult residents, called Dearsman a hero.

Firefighters had the blaze under control barely a minute after they arrived.

"I said, 'Have at it,' " Dearsman said. " 'Your hose is bigger than mine.'"

Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 727 869-6245.

[Last modified June 22, 2006, 22:43:53]