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Monday afternoon, a Selma family lost their home to a sudden fire that the Selma Fire Department said is still under investigation.

The fire started around 4 p.m. on 1416 Boynton Street where the interim fire chief Coley Byrd of the department said there was major damage done to the structure after the fire was put out but said he could not rule out if the home was a total loss because he didn’t get a chance to walk through it.

“It still standing,” said Byrd. “But there was major damage to the interior of the house, the attic and there was heavy smoke damage.”

Byrd told Selma Times Journal that were no fatalities within the home due to the fire and he said some safety measures to take note of if a fire does break out within the home is to immediately exit the structure, call 9-1-1 to get the fire department in route and once they get there to let the professionals handle the extinguishing of the fire and once you leave the structure, to please don’t return back inside.

“There should also be a pre-fire plan with every family that lives within a house, where if a fire does break out that there’s a meeting place outside, so that everybody can meet and be accounted for. That way, the fire department can be notified when they get on scene or through 9-1-1, if all the occupants that resided within the house aren’t accounted for.”

Byrd also mentioned to homeowners not to worry about grabbing or saving anything during an active fire and to understand that the most important thing to remember is their safety first.

“Another preventative measure that all homeowners need to remember is to make sure that your house has working smoke detectors that are installed properly within the home.

“They don’t need to be mounted in bedrooms or your kitchen,” Byrd said. They need to be mounted in corridors, outside of bedrooms and make sure that the batteries are changed out every six months or every time, the time changes. It’s a good thing to go by. Smoke detectors save lives.”

Byrd said he recommends that everyone who lives within a home should have a fire extinguisher and he said if they don’t, they should go and purchase one and keep within the kitchen to help extinguish any type of kitchen fire that they might have and to remember the P.A.S.S. acronym, pull, aim, squeeze, sweep when using the fire extinguisher which signifies the correct way to use it : pull the pin, aim the nozzle, squeeze the lever, and sweep it back and forth over the base of the fire.