An entire family on Olivera Street in the Lake Independence area lost their home and all their belongings when their house was devoured by fire this morning. By the time the fire fighters arrived at the scene, it was already too late. The two story wooden structure was completely destroyed. However they did manage to contain it before it caused further damage. But not before another home owner lost her belongings when the same fire, scorched her apartment. She spoke to us about the damage today.
Daniel Ortiz
"Do you all know how the fire started? How it spread? What happened?"
Shelmadine Jones, Fire Victim
"I don't know I wasn't here, I went out."
Daniel Ortiz
"The room that was destroyed, how does it affect your family? Is it a bedroom? A hall?"
Shelmadine Jones, Fire Victim
"Bedroom."
Daniel Ortiz
"Have you been around to see if they have any kind of water damage inside your home?"
Shelmadine Jones, Fire Victim
"Water damage, my mattress and clothing got burnt."
Daniel Ortiz
"Where are you going to be sleeping tonight?"
Shelmadine Jones, Fire Victim
"I don't know I'm probably going to go to my aunt."
Daniel Ortiz
"Ma'am do you have any idea as to the total loss you suffered because of this?"
Shelmadine Jones, Fire Victim
"Yes I loss all my clothes, my baby's clothes, everything out of my room is burnt."
Benisford Matura, Ops., Ofc - Fire Dept.
"Upon arrival at Olivera Street, we found a 2 store wooden structure totally engulfed in flames. We got into operation and got the flames under control. There was a structure about 15 feet away that got a little scorched and one that nothing happened to because we protected that structure. Unfortunately, the original structure which was a 40x40 wooden structure with zinc roofing, got totally destroyed by the fire."
Daniel Ortiz
"Have you guys been able to establish what caused the fire to that 2 story wooden structure?"
Benisford Matura, Ops., Ofc - Fire Dept.
"Right now at the moment we have not discovered what caused the fire. We know the approximate location, it started from somewhere on the ground floor or the first floor of the structure and went up into the 2nd story and got to the entire structure. Because it's a wooden structure and probably an older building, it burnt faster than usual."
Daniel Ortiz
"Is arson still a possibility at this time?"
Benisford Matura, Ops., Ofc - Fire Dept.
"We have all ends open, we are not suspecting anything. We will get our investigators to sift through the rubble and see what we come up with."
So while the Fire Fighters did manage to contain the situation after the first structure burnt down, according to the Operations Officer at the Fire Department, they could have done much more, had they not responded to a false alarm on Freetown road minutes before.
Benisford Matura, Ops., Ofc - Fire Dept.
"Bear in mind that the fire truck, the minute we get a call we are rushing out of our compound as fast as we can, we are driving through heavy traffic just to find out it's a false alarm. There's so many things that can happen because of a false alarm. In this case today, the false alarm delayed our respond to that fire. If we didn't have that false alarm, we'd have probably reached there a few minutes earlier."
Reporter
"If you guys had not been delayed with that false alarm, do you think you guys would have managed to at least salvage some of what was in the house?"
Benisford Matura, Ops., Ofc - Fire Dept.
"Yes I believe so because of the size of the structure we would have been able to save at least a portion of it but like I said we had a false call just before this call came in. we had a false alarm for a fire in front of Western Dairy. A false alarm is something that is very bad to our fire department."
Reporter
"Does it happen often?"
Benisford Matura, Ops., Ofc - Fire Dept.
"Not too often but it does happen and this is one scenario where it hampers our operations."
Fortunately no one was injured in the fire.
Email
Print