Nov. 26 -- A home on the 6400 block of Winterberry Lane sustained heavy damage in a fire Sunday afternoon, and 11 dogs died, according to the home's owner, Karen Burtle.
It took firefighters a little more than four hours to extinguish the fire at the roughly 6,000-square-foot house. Firefighters were called to the home a little after 1 p.m., and the fire was officially out by about 5:15 p.m., according to Brandon Blough, the Springfield Fire Department deputy division chief of operations.
Only the dogs were at home during the fire.
Burtle, 65, lived in the home for six years before it went up in flames, she said. As the owner of American Medical Supply and Service Company in Virden, Burtle had woken up early and was out of her house before 5 a.m. She said she spent the day taking care of a hospice patient in Edinburg. She was about to return home when she decided to stop at T.J. Maxx in Springfield to shop for Christmas presents. She was in her car near the store when she got a call from her next-door neighbor.
"I thought the damn dogs must be out again," Burtle said, of her first thought when she saw the call.
Instead, her neighbor informed her that her house was on fire. Panicked, Burtle said she stepped on the gas and bounded toward home, while calling her four kids to tell them about the fire. She found out her daughter, who lived next door to her, wasn't home and hadn't seen any smoke when she left at half past noon.
One of her calls was to the girlfriend of her son, Mike Rieger, who lived on the lower level of the home. Rieger, 30, said he was in the countryside in Virden with minimum cell reception. He was boiling deer heads to make European mounts when his girlfriend reached him and told to head toward Springfield.
Between Burtle and him, Rieger was the "dog person."
"I like dogs better than people -- that's why I got so many," Rieger said, with a chuckle.
He turned somber when he spoke of the dogs who died. His 4-year-old black Labrador retriever, Avery, had given birth to a litter of six yellow and three black Lab puppies a week ago. The nine puppies had been too young to be named, he said. The dogs, along with a 10-year-old miniature Pinscher named Toby, had been in the basement when he left, he said.
"It just kills me that I wasn't here to get them out," Rieger said, while standing in the rain across the street from his mother's burning house.
Blough said though the bodies of all the dogs were not recovered, the heaviest parts of the fire were in the basement.
"If there were any dogs in the basement, it would have been difficult for them to have survived in that atmosphere," Blough said.
Three of Rieger's Labrador retrievers, all of whom had been in the yard, survived. Six-year-old brothers, Nitro and Gunner, as well as 7-month-old Ember, stayed out of the rain in Rieger's truck, while Rieger wore camouflage-patterned hunting clothes he found in his truck to keep warm. Rieger, and the three dogs, walked over to his sister's open garage where friends and family monitored firefighters working on Burtle's home.
Burtle stood at the edge of the garage door, wrapped in a fleece blanket.
Seeing everything she owned burn was not a unfamiliar feeling, she said. Twelve years ago, the building that housed her business had burned to the ground. The cause of the fire was never known, though the building had been old, she said.
Burtle pushed through and was back in business the same day. She said she went and bought equipment and computers and continued work out of her secretary's home.
"I lost everything but I didn't lose my patients," Burtle said.
Similarly, Burtle said she expected to go into the office Monday morning to make sure her patients were taken care of.
"I am a strong person," Burtle said. "I just hope some of my pictures of my babies are left because those can't be replaced."
Though Burtle had only lived in the home for six years, it was the home where her grandson died three years ago, she said, her voice breaking. Rieger's son, Drake, was born prematurely and managed to live for five months. Burtle said she hoped a photo of Drake encircled by angels could be recovered from her bedroom.
"I had some great memories with Drake in there," Burtle said.
According to Blough, the home is not inhabitable. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, he said.
In responding to the call, firefighters leaving Station 11 could see black plumes of smoke, according to Fire Chief Allen Reyne. Upon arrival, the firefighters were greeted with heavy fire coming out of the back of the home, and the floors were beginning to collapse, he added.
Fire was found between the ceiling, floors and siding and in order to force their way into the home and dampen the fire, firefighters had to cut holes in the garage doors, roof, walls and ceiling, Blough said. Another Springfield unit was called in, as was the Chatham Fire Department.
Two firefighters were hurt, one with a back injury and another with a shoulder injury, Reyne said. They had been treated and released from the hospital as of Sunday evening.
Even though Burtle and Rieger have lost everything, both of them insisted they didn't want donations.
"We have a strong support system and family," Rieger said.
"There are people who have nothing that need donations," Burtle said.
Burtle said she would stay with family and Rieger said he could stay at a home in Virden he had purchased and was fixing up.
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