BROWN TOWNSHIP — The Skinner family was not at home when its Ireland Road house caught fire Tuesday morning, but a neighbor on a nearby dairy farm who saw flames coming from the home called 9-1-1.
Neighbor Stan Hunter drove to the scene from his home a mile and a half away, after a phone call from his daughter alerted him to the fire. His daughter also called Carol Skinner at work in her quilt shop. Skinner asked the neighbor to try to free the two dogs trapped in the house, but by the time the neighbors were able to reach the house, the fire was too intense to approach the building. Katie and Gordon, the Skinners’ two golden retrievers, did not make it out of the fire.
Audrey Skinner, homeowner Matt Skinner’s mother, drove to the fire with her husband after being alerted by her son.
“My son called me from Columbus and said ‘Carol said our house was on fire, will you go out and look,’” Audrey Skinner said. “We just came out and saw this horrible scene. It was almost gone.”
Fire Chief Larry Stimpert of the Eastern Knox County Joint Fire District received the call around 9:30 a.m. He immediately requested help from nearby fire departments.
“When they called, it sounded like a good [sized] fire, so right away we called for mutual aid,” he said.
Stimpert acknowledged that the heavy fog in the area of the home may have delayed neighbors seeing the flames.
Stimpert said that when he and the other EKCJFD firefighters arrived, the fire was already heavily involved.
“It was through the roof on the east side of the structure,” he said. “It took about 20 to 25 minutes to actually get it knocked down.”
The EKCJFD brought two engines and a tanker to the fire, College Township brought two engines, and the Loudonville Fire Department and Fredericktown Community Fire District brought tankers as well. Water for the fire was provided by a dry hydrant about a mile from the scene.
A dry hydrant is a non-pressurized pipeline that lies in a pond below the frostline, or level in the water below where the water freezes during extreme cold. The water is pumped into a fire department tanker at 350 gallons per minute. Fredericktown Chief Scott Mast and his firefighters operated the hydrant during the fire.
The pond is on property owned by William Hostetler. Mast said fire departments have used the dry hydrant in Hostetler’s pond at least three times recently to combat fires.
Hostetler brought coffee and cookies to the firefighters after they had worked all morning.
Carol Skinner said her house was heated with electric baseboard heaters and a woodburner, but she said the woodburner had not been used for two days due to the warmer weather. The home was not equipped with working smoke detectors.
The Skinners, who have three children who were in school at the time of the fire, have lived in the frame three-bedroom home for eight years.
During the fire, Carol Skinner watched as her home burned, and tried to contact her insurance company and friends. Both Carol and Matt’s parents live nearby, and offered the family a place to stay.
Skinner still was able to offer assistance to her neighbor, Stan Hunter, who was unable to deliver meals to the homebound because the firefighting equipment blocked his exit.
As the fire burned down and was doused with water, little was left standing. Skinner watched quietly, repeatedly talking about the family’s pets that had been inside.
“I only had them inside today because of the storm and the lightning,” she said to her mother after her parents arrived.
Explaining how grateful she was that her family was not inside at the time, Carol Skinner spoke with Stimpert after the fire. Sher explained the layout of the house, including where heating devices were located. The cause of the fire has not been determined.
No estimate of the destroyed property’s value is available.
