Amish Fire Deaths...Looking for Answers

[Duffman]

Let me start by saying that I am not looking to place any blame in this tragic event. I just have some questions. I ask anyone who responds to an Amish community to help provide answers.

What type of emergency service notification does the Amish community have?

Does their culture result in a delay of FD arrival?

[NJFFSA16]

There was a lengthy thread that ran earlier in the year and it discussed the same such question. You can access it at:

AMISH Thread

It might answer your question....

[EastKyFF]

This house had electricity, so I would presume they had phones as well. Even the more stringent ordnungs sometimes have phones on utility poles (i.e., OUTSIDE the home).

Smoke detectors are another thought.

[Duffman]

Thanks to NJFF for filling me in. Very insightful.

[ThNozzleman]

I believe the article I read stated that the family was in the process of removing "modern amenities" that had been added to the home since it was converted to an "English" home. Evidently, they were taking modern appliances and such out of the home. I don't know if they use smoke detectors or what, but I'll bet the phone was one of the first things to go. I think it's absolutely silly to refuse to own and operate technilogical devices when they could very well save your family from a terrible death. We all use technology to one extent or the other, even if it's merely buttoning or zipping up your pants or shirt. To me, this ranks right up there with refusing to take medecines or accept modern life-saving care based on beliefs that are, in my opinion, based in mythological fairy tales in the first place.

[NJFFSA16]

MIDDLEFIELD, Ohio (AP) - A wood-burning stove ignited fuel
leaking from a lantern that had been knocked over, causing a fire
in a Geauga County farmhouse that killed an Amish family of three,
authorities determined Sunday.
"It was accidental. It appears to be one of their lanterns
tipped over and broke," said Scott Anderson, chief of the
Middlefield Volunteer Fire Department.
Anderson declined to release the identities of the victims, but
said they were a married couple in their 70s and their daughter in
her 50s.
Firefighters responding to the scene about 7 p.m. Saturday found
the bodies in a front room of the two-story wood house in rural
Huntsburg Township, an a northeast Ohio Amish community where
people shun modern conveniences such as electricity as part of
their religious faith.
"The Amish don't have telephones, but they have shared
community phones, and a neighbor used one to make the call," said
Deputy John Hiscox, a Sheriff's Department spokesman.
"It was an extremely hot and quick fire," Hiscox said. "The
house had a slate roof so the fire could not burn through the
roof."
Houses in the community about 30 miles east of Cleveland
typically are heated with wood-burning stoves, and kerosene
lanterns are sometimes used for light.
Anderson said that the family had been using a large lantern
when it appears that a brass part of it broke off, allowing fuel to
leak out in the living room.
"It was an older style unit, and could have been homemade,"
Anderson said.
Bill Poole, mayor of nearby Middlefield village, said the fire
nearly gutted the structure.
"The main portion of the home looks pretty well gone," Poole
said.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)