House total loss after overnight fire
Published 11:00 am Tuesday, July 21, 2015
A house fire Monday night destroyed a home on West Dallas Avenue.
A family of five lost everything in a house fire Monday night into early Tuesday morning.
Battalion Chief Doug Horton with the Selma Fire Department said a call came in at 11:44 p.m. Monday for a house fire on the 2300 block of West Dallas Avenue.
“When they got there, we had fire coming out of the attic,” Horton said. “Upon arrival, we made an offensive attack, we realized that it was becoming unsafe, and we moved to a defensive attack and from there the guys just worked really hard.”
Shatava Edwards, who lived at the home, looks on with her father Robert Stewart as firefighters finish putting out the fire.
Horton said the house is considered a total loss, while an investigation continues into what caused the blaze.
Zion Edwards, a 16 year-old who lived at the home, said she was not there when the fire started, but she received text messages from friends and family asking if she was alright.
“People started texting me and calling me saying, ‘I’m praying for you’ and ‘Are you OK?’ and stuff like that,” Edwards said. “I was like what is going on?”
Edwards made her way to home in time to see her house engulfed in flames.
She reunited with her mother, Shatava Edwards, to make sure everyone was OK. Zion said she believes only her father was at home at the time of the fire.
Horton said that no one sustained injuries in the fire.
As for the department, Horton said they did a great job in a tough situation.
“Right now, it’s really hard on the guys with extreme heat, but everybody pulled together and worked hard and got through it,” Horton said. “We try to rotate guys in and out as much as we can. That way you’re always working fresh guys as much as possible.”
