Dec. 11-- A man who might have been disabled was killed in a house fire Monday morning, and his father was burned while trying to rescue him, a Sapulpa fire official said.
The fire in a two-story house in the 6200 block of South 46th West Avenue was reported about 10:25 a.m. When firefighters arrived, "the house was about 80 percent involved," Assistant Fire Chief David Taylor said.
Firefighters were told that a person might still be inside, but the flames were too intense for them to enter the house at that time, Taylor said.
"The fire was way too advanced; we couldn't make a rescue," he said. "We went to defensive attack."
It took firefighters about two hours to extinguish the blaze, although they continued to put out hot spots after that.
Tony Oldham, who lives in the area, was headed home from work when he and the people he was with saw smoke.
They got to the house and saw flames shooting 80 feet into the air, he said.
Oldham said he and a friend saw the father trying to go back into the burning building and that they went to help, too.
He said he and a friend "tried to run in, but when we got to the stairs, there was too much flame. There was nothing we could do."
Oldham said they were able to get the older man out of the house and prevent him from going back in to try to rescue his son.
By that point, the man's hair was on fire, and he had burns on his body, Oldham said.
Taylor said the father "did have quite a few burns on his face and his arms, and I'm sure he inhaled a lot of smoke."
The man was taken by ambulance to Hillcrest Medical Center, Taylor said. Information on his condition was not released later Monday.
Firefighters were not immediately able to locate the man's son because of the smoke and damage to the house.
The fire caused the home's second story to collapse onto the first.
"Once we got the fire under control and we got to the point where we could go in and search, we did locate a second victim," Taylor said.
Authorities didn't release either man's name or age Monday, but Taylor said the son might have been disabled.
Several agencies, including the Creek County Sheriff's Office, the state Medical Examiner's Office and the state Fire Marshal's Office, were at the scene Monday afternoon.
Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the fire, which could take some time considering the amount of damage, Taylor said.
Jerry Wofford 918-581-8310
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