Dogs wake owner during house fire
MORTON -- A stove fire in Morton that got out of control caused between $4,000 and $5,000 in damage to a house located at 5177 N. C.R. 600W, estimated Greencastle fire chief Bill Newgent.
No one was seriously injured in the fire. Bev Crawford was in the house napping when the fire started, but her dogs -- Gunner, a Miniature Pinscher mix and Sam, a chocolate Labrador Retriever -- woke her.
"I don't usually take naps, but I just fell asleep," Crawford said.
Crawford said the dogs then barked continuously to wake her.
"The dogs saved my life," she said.
Crawford said that she was fine, besides some minor problems.
"The smoke got to me a little," Crawford said.
The call for the fire came in at 1:42 p.m. Newgent said that it was difficult to tell exactly what caused the fire.
"It may have been a crack in the flue," Newgent said. "It started between the wall and the stove. It traveled to the outside of the wall and engulfed (it.)"
The fire consumed the outside wall of the house and caused damage to the chimney, which necessitated it being knocked down.
"Whenever a chimney becomes super heated like that, it can crack the cement block and become unstable," said Newgent.
Newgent said the fire didn't take long to put out.
"Bainbridge (Fire Department) did a very good job on that," he said.
Newgent said that the wood stove was the only source of heat in the house. He suggested that Bev Crawford and her husband Todd Crawford stay somewhere else that night, but they said they had no where else to go. He contacted the Red Cross to aid the family.
Bev Crawford wasn't sure they would be able to stay elsewhere because of the dogs. She was considering staying at the home that night.
The house was left with a large hole in the wall that formerly held the chimney. The responding fire fighters were nailing tarps to that wall.
"We're just trying to protect their belongings from the elements," Newgent said.
The power to the house was also turned off, which Newgent said was a standard precaution after a fire.
Responding to the fire were representatives of the Bainbridge Fire Department, Clinton Township Rescue and Fire Department, Greencastle Fire Department and the Russellville Fire Department.
Sam, the Crawford's Chocolate Lab, was in the news for another reason recently- he was stuck on Glenn Flint Lake, until he was rescued.