HEATHER CASEY
Firehouse.Com News
Two separate fires in Sussex County, Delaware Monday night damaged at least
10 houses and killed five residents.
A family of six was staying in the summer resort area of Broadkill Beach
after being burned out of their own home in Milton last Tuesday morning by
an electrical fire, said Joseph Thomas, director of the Sussex County
Emergency Operations Center.
The Milton Fire Department was dispatched to this fire at 1:52 a.m. “You
could see the glow in the sky from about four miles away,” said Chief Lynn
Rogers.
The elevated house was fully engulfed upon the fire department’s arrival, as
well as four vehicles - two cars, a pick up and a Blazer.
Firefighters were met at the scene by a woman in the road with cuts and
abrasions. “She must have jumped,” Rogers said. “She was just hysterical
when we got there.”
The woman told firefighters she wasn’t sure if the rest of her family had
gotten out.
“It wasn’t long before we met with the inevitable and found the first
victim, and the then the second, third, fourth and fifth,” Rogers said.
“When you just keep finding body after body, it wears on you.”
Rogers said the fatalities included a father approximately 50 years old, two
boys about eight and ten, a daughter about 18 years old, and her infant son.
It was discovered today that one of the young boys who died had just been
chosen as a winner in the Milton Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Essay
Contest. The names of the contest winners have not been released yet. “That
was so sad. He went to school with one of my daughters,” Rogers said.
Although no cause has been determined for the second fire this family
endured, the two fires are unrelated, he said.
Rogers said he met with the family’s father just a few days ago to go over
the final report of the first house fire. “He didn’t have an active smoke
detector, and he was supposed to come by Thursday [to pick one up], Rogers
said. “I guess that won’t be happening.”
It took 30-35 minutes to gain control of Monday’s deadly blaze. A
neighboring house caught on fire as well, and suffered about $15,000 in
damage.
About 24 firefighters responded with a ladder, three engines and two
tankers.
The Milton Fire Company was aided by the Lewes Fire Department, the
Ellendale Fire Department and Memorial Volunteer Fire Co. of Slaughter
Beach.
In an earlier fire Monday night in Dewey Beach, ten houses in the same
county were damaged and six of those were destroyed. Each house was priced
between $800,000 and $900,000, said Leonard Tylecki, first assistant chief
of the Rehoboth Beach Fire Co.
Rehoboth firefighters got the first call at 10:30 p.m. and arrived to find
the fire had already spread from one house to several others in the J-shaped
cluster.
“You could see the massive red glow in the sky, and could tell it was more
than one structure on fire,” Tylecki said. “It was like - take your choice.
There was enough fire for everybody.”
Tylecki said the spread of the flames was accelerated by 20-25 mph winds.
The elevated, ocean-front homes also happened to be close together, with
only about 28 feet between them, and had a great deal of exterior wood to
fuel the fire.
“It was like a bonfire on stilts,” Tylecki said.
Firefighters also had trouble with their water supply. “We opened five
different hydrants and had a little problem maintaining the flow,” Tylecki
said.
There were two minor firefighter injuries in this incident - both
firefighters were examined and released from a local hospital after one got
something in his eye and another suffered exhaustion.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but officials are
examining the house where it originated, which was still unoccupied and
under construction. “That’s the one they’re looking long and hard at,”
Tylecki said.
The other homes had recently been completed and occupied.
The Rehoboth Fire Co. was aided by the fire departments of Millville, Lewis,
Indian River, Milton and Ocean City, Md. As this fire scene winded down,
many firefighters responded straight to the incident in Broadkill Beach
where the five fatalities occurred.
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