East Texas

By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer

LINDALE -- A trust fund has been established for the family who lost their home in a Wednesday morning fire north of Lindale.

Smith County Precinct 5 Justice of the Peace James Cowart’s says anyone wanting to donate to the Tommy and Evon Kirk family can do so at any Southside Bank.

Mr. Kirk questioned the response time of firefighters responding to a fire at his home Wednesday, but records show the first units arrived within six minutes of being paged.

Flames blistered the Wednesday morning sky and the air choked with a suffocating black smoke. Firefighters from three departments fought stubbornly, but the inferno claimed the 4,600-square-foot home of Tommy and Evon Kirk and their children.

The fire broke out behind the couple's business, Lindale Auto Glass and Collision on U.S. Highway 69 about two miles north of Lindale.

Smith County Assistant Fire Marshal Marilynn Wilson said the fire appears to have originated in the kitchen area of the home and quickly spread when a back door window was broken by the one of the owner's employees to use a water hose to try and extinguish the fire before it engulfed the home.

Tommy Kirk watched the firefighters as his wife was consoled by other family members.

"It took 30 minutes for them to get here and that is unacceptable," he said.

Ms. Wilson said that was not true and that time seems longer when a person is upset.

"The tapes show the first unit arrived on the scene within six minutes, and that is pretty good," she said.

Kirk said he noticed the smoke while working at his shop and went to investigate.

He said he called the fire department and then went into the home and tried to put out the fire while donning a paint-type aspirator to protect him from smoke. But the flames and smoke proved too much for Kirk and the employee and they had to retreat from the home.

Ms. Wilson said when Lindale firefighters first arrived on scene there was thick smoke rushing from all the eaves on the house and, after making a quick attempt to fight the fire inside, they pulled out.

"They could tell the roof was about to collapse and at that point this became a fire that was fought in a defensive posture," she said.

As the fire raged, 19 firefighters from three departments attacked the fire from various points around the home.

After 30 minutes on the scene, Kirk asked firefighters why they were not using the hydrant in the front of his business.

Firefighters could not see the hydrant, but also did not know it was there until he pointed it out.

They had been filling their trucks at a hydrant a mile away.

When showed the hydrant, the firefighters quickly laid a five-inch line to the pumper truck.

A few of the firefighters were treated on the scene for heat exhaustion, but there were no injuries and no one was in the home at the time of the fire.

Ms. Wilson said early loss estimates may exceed $500,000 as the family lost all of their possessions in the home.

She said Kirk told her there have been at least three other fires in the house and a lightning strike that destroyed all of his computers and televisions within a six-month-period.

Ms. Wilson said Kirk told her he had been having electrical issues with several ground fault interrupter electrical outlets in the area of the fire's origin.

The other fires in the house included a faulty water heater fire, a lamp fire when clothes were accidentally put on top of it and a plug fire.

She said insurance paid on the lighting strike and the water heater fire and added that,

in 2003, a home the Kirks own on County Road 429 was also destroyed in a fire.

The cause of that fire she said was undetermined.

"We will be looking at several things and it will be at least tomorrow before we can begin to dig it out and determine an exact cause," she said. "I told him sometimes people just have a run of bad luck."

Ms. Wilson said the cause could prove electrical, but she said it was important for people to not open windows or doors during a blaze because it can fuel the fire.

"When that back door glass was broken it allowed fresh oxygen into the home and with the winds we had this morning it pushed the flames straight through the house," she said. "That is why firefighters cut ventilation holes in roofs and don't knock out doors."

Kirk said all of his family pictures, clothes and belongings were in the home.

"My children are going to freak," he said.

When his daughter Jamie arrived on the scene, Kirk rushed to embrace her as she broke into tears.

"We lost everything we own in this fire. Looking at my house it's hard to be anything but upset, but I am glad that no one was home and no one was injured," he said.

UP IN FLAMES: Tommy Kirk comforts his daughter, Jamie, as they watch their home in Lindale burn. Firefighters from Lindale, Mineola and Dixie converged at Kirk’s residence to fight a fire that consumed the residence.
(Staff Photos By Jaime R. Carrero)