-By Bob Wade, DAT Night Team Leader/Supervisor — ARC of SE Wisconsin — Milwaukee, WI.

Christmas Morning — Thursday, December 25, 2008

At 2:10am this morning my teammates and I were dispatched to a working structure fire on the southwest side of the city here in Milwaukee.

Upon arrival at the scene, I was told that there were two victims from the 2-story, single family dwelling–a mother and her son.

The mother was being transported to the hospital for smoke inhalation and the son had refused treatment at the scene.

A police officer told me that they were over in the home next door at that moment.  The paramedics were loading the woman on to a gurney as we approached the front door to the neighboring home.  Her son was inside, completely covered with smoke residue, his face a dark ashen color of gray.

“I started a fire in our fireplace at around 9pm and at around 2am I took the poker and attempted to get the fire to go out so I could go to bed,” he stated. 

“One of the logs fell out of the fireplace and rolled underneath the Christmas tree and it started on fire,” the young man continued.

Upon entering the home to do a damage assessment, we saw about a 6-foot tall skinny trunk of a tree still sticking out of the Christmas tree stand.  It had been set up only a few feet from the fireplace. All of the needles and branches had burned away.  The presents and carpeting beneath where the tree stood were all burned up.  The large-screen TV to the left of the fireplace was melted and every wall in the room was blackened from about the waist up.

A Milwaukee Police Officer asked if we had gone upstairs yet.  He stated that there was extensive smoke damage to all of the rooms on the 2nd floor.

As the young man’s sister arrived from her home to help, we gave him a Red Cross Fire pamphlet and explained its contents. This family had homeowner’s insurance so there wasn’t much else for us to do there.  They had an alternate place to stay and were headed over to the hospital to check on their Mom.

The lesson learned there is to always keep your Christmas trees and decorations well away from all heating sources.  It doesn’t take but a spark to light a Christmas tree on fire.

Filed under: Disaster Response, Volunteers