Ogden neighbor saves couple from fire
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No comments [ Add Comment ]By SAM COOPER
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- The morning after a suspicious fire ravaged their home, Sherrie and Alvin Heath walked over to their neighbor Kristina Anderson to give her a long hug and say thanks.
"I don't think we'd be alive ... I don't think we'd have made it," said Sherrie Heath, as she fought to control her emotions. "We sure appreciate you guys as neighbors."
Returning the hug, Anderson said she was glad she could help.
"I know you guys would have done the same for me," she said.
Fire investigators are still working to determine what started the blaze at 1071 37th Street just after midnight Monday, but the homeowners are quick to credit their neighbor for saving their lives.
Anderson said she'd just gotten out of the shower when she noticed an orange glow through her kitchen window.
After taking a second look, she grabbed her cell phone and, with a friend, ran around to the front of her neighbors' home as she called 911.
"I started ringing their doorbell and pounding on their door while I talked to dispatch," Anderson said. "In those few moments, in the time it took us to get across to their house, the fire had really grown."
When nobody answered the Heaths' door, Anderson ran around the home looking for other entrances before returning to the front door, where someone finally answered.
The couple had been sound asleep at the time, Sherrie Heath said.
"They were beating on the door, beating on the door. I didn't know who it was pounding so hard. I thought the door was going to cave in," she said. They had no idea the house was on fire until they looked out their kitchen window and saw nothing but orange flames, Sherrie Heath said.
The fire was spreading very quickly and a few more moments inside could have been fatal.
"Without her (Anderson), I really doubt either of us would be here, 'cause when we got out, it (the fire) really took off," Alvin Heath said.
Two pets were also rescued from the home, but a 12-year-old cat named Shredder perished, Sherrie Heath said.
Emergency crews were dispatched to the home at around 12:17 a.m. and arrived to find the carport and kitchen fully engulfed in flames, said Ogden Deputy Fire Chief Chad Tucker.
Firefighters were able to knock down the fire, but not before it destroyed the whole west side of the structure.
"I'll be really surprised if they save it," Alvin Heath said. "Everywhere the ceiling is coming in and insulation is down. Everything is soaking wet."
"We went back in it ... It's nothing like I thought it would ever begin to look like ... It's bad. It's really bad," Sherrie Heath said.
The Heaths are convinced the fire is the result of arson. They said a neighbor noticed two people near their carport shortly before it started.
"There'd be no reason for someone to be in our yard, especially that late at night," Sherrie Heath said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, said Ogden Deputy Fire Chief Chad Tucker.
"We have ruled out any accidental fire, and are ruling this as a suspicious fire. We think there may be evidence that will take us down the road toward arson," he said.
Crime scene investigators were on the scene until early Tuesday morning gathering evidence, neighbors said.
Since the fire, Sherrie and Alvin Heath said members of their church and the Red Cross have stepped in to help board up windows and provide temporary accommodations.
