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Friday's Internet Edition, 6:59 PM, May 9, 2008.
Bennett Fire & Rescue was dispatched at 2:35 a.m. to a report of a house fire off Old Victory Road at Oak Park Drive three miles east of Bennett. Upon arrival, the almost 7,000-square-foot wood-timber home of Kevin Mitchell and family, at the end of Oak Park, was engulfed in flames. “The fire load was so high there because there was so much wood and it was going very heavy when we got there,” said Bennett Fire Chief Earl Cumley. “It’s among the biggest structure fires I can remember out in this area. It was big one that took a lot of manpower and effort.” Byers, Strasburg and Sable-Altura fire departments helped with the blaze that took several hours to extinguish. “We had 38 firefighters at the scene and it took about 55,000 gallons of water,” Cumley said. Three firefighters were injured — a sprained ankle, an asthma attack and a shoulder injury. “It got real muddy around the scene and that led to some of the problems with firefighters running around,” Cumley said. Mitchell, his wife and a combination of children and grandchildren escaped the house without injury. “Kevin told us that when he woke up, the alarm system was going off and that there was smoke in the house. He went by the door to the garage and saw flames from underneath the door.” Cumley said. “He and the family were able to get out pretty quickly through the front and without many problems.” Bennett firefighters responded to a report of a flareup two days later, but no additional damage occurred. “There was a smoldering tire that we ran back out to around 7:30 Wednesday (April 30) morning, but another fire never did start up,” Cumley said. Besides the house, other damage included the rear end of a tractor near the garage, where the fire started. The cause of the fire was still unknown at press time. “We have investigators coming out tomorrow to do a full investigation into the cause,” Cumley said May 1. The house was 11 years old and hand-built by Mitchell. “I milled the timbers from an old saw mill myself,” Mitchell said the morning of the fire. “It was a labor of love, but I can’t do it anymore — I’m getting too old for that.” Mitchell was mayor of Bennett from 1992 until 1996, but had to relinquish his post when he moved outside the city limits to the Oak Park address. “It was a bad day for a good friend,” said Bennett trustee David Dummar, a longtime Mitchell family friend. “We were around watching Kevin build that home from the ground up and to see it lost like that is just devastating.” The Adams County Sheriff’s Department indicated foul play was not suspected and that the investigation was moved to the jurisdiction of Bennett Fire & Rescue. |
