Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Duty calls for making a detour

No one was injured in a house fire that diverted three firefighters headed back to the station.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published March 16, 2007

TAMPA - On the way back from a medical call Thursday afternoon, four blocks from their South Tampa fire station, they saw pillars of black smoke.

Instantly, the fire truck computer flashed: House fire at 4113 W Inman Ave. Possibly an elderly man and two animals inside.

"Oh, no," Capt. Joe Billek thought. It was just him and two others, not a full crew of nine. They didn't even have on their gear.

Billek, Mike Layton and Jeremy Queen jumped out. Neighbors stared as they each threw on 40 pounds of suits, gloves, helmets and other equipment.

The three pulled a hose out of the top of the truck, kicked the door in and crawled into the burning house. "Anybody here?" they screamed. No answer.

They found flames in the back and poured on water, fighting alone until reinforcements arrived from West Tampa.

Five engine companies, two ladder trucks, two rescue trucks, two chiefs and about 33 firefighters converged on the scene, along with Janet Lee Henderson in her running gear. The South Tampa marketing exec had been on her way to pick up her daughter from school when she saw smoke.

"That's my dad's house," she told a firefighter.

Otto Lee Henderson's car wasn't in the carport, so she was relieved. And his cat lived outdoors, so it probably ran away.

But where was Bridgett, her dad's Shih Tzu-poodle mix?

"That dog is his life," she said.

Henderson sat in the driveway of a neighbor's yard, trying to get her dad on the cell phone. Someone said her father, an insurance consultant, was having lunch in Ybor City with his accountant.

Half an hour had passed before he arrived. She ran past three fire trucks to the 78-year-old man in the tan blazer and tie.

"My house?" he said, then sat on a fire truck, shaking.

He'd lived there almost 30 years, had a home office. And what about their family heirlooms? He is the great-grandson of W. B. Henderson, the cattle baron, pioneer and namesake of Henderson Boulevard. The fire took their family treasures.

Apparently an electrical short started it all, causing an estimated $250,000 in damage.

But Bridgett was safe in dad's Cadillac. "Nothing matters as long as they're okay," Janet Lee Henderson said.

With the fire out, Billek's crew loaded their truck for the drive to the station, where they had been going two hours before.

"We've still got plenty of time to do more of these," the captain said. "We don't go home until 7:30 tomorrow morning."

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com.

[Last modified March 16, 2007, 01:03:52]