Matthew Cross said his instincts kicked in when he saw smoke and flames coming from his neighbor’s carport. He threw himself against the front door, broke it down and led the two men and three dogs inside to safety.
The house at 1311 Davis Ave. caught fire Tuesday afternoon. The fire department received the 911 call at 12:11 p.m., said Capt. David Kissinger, public information officer for the Springdale Fire Department. The fire was out at about 12:35 p.m. Nobody was injured in the fire, he said.
Christmas lights hung from the eaves of the brick house, and the driveway was covered in wet and blackened debris. A blackened car and pick up truck sat in the car port, flames coming from underneath them as firefighters blasted the area with water.
Cross, 25, said it was his military training that caused his instincts to take over. He was deployed as an army medic in Afghanistan three times before he came home a year and a half ago. It wasn’t the first time he had saved someone from a house fire.
“In seconds, the whole house started to go up,” he said.
Wind always makes it more difficult to put out a fire, because it causes the flames to spread quickly, Kissinger said. The wind speed Tuesday was 25 miles per hour with gusts up to 36 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service website.
Bob Barnes and Fred Baker were inside the house when the fire started, Barnes said. They were watching a movie when they heard Cross and his father shouting and banging on the doors.
“They didn’t even know there was a fire yet,” Cross said.
Tanya Hammonds owns the house and lives there with her four children, her sister Kim Sheckler, her mother Dolores Pope and Barnes, Pope’s boyfriend, Barnes said. Barker, who was in the house when it caught fire, is a friend of the family.
While the three dogs did not die in the fire, one of the dogs, named Smokie, had to breath from an oxygen mask for a while. A fish and a guinea pig died, Barnes said.
Kissinger said neighbors told him they heard a couple explosions during the fire. He said he didn’t know what the explosions were from.
Duane Miller, Springdale fire marshal, said there won’t be an official cause for the fire, because officials haven’t found any evidence. He said his best guess is that the fire started because of a combination of smouldering cigarettes and the wind.
Miller said 30 percent of the house has fire damage and the rest has smoke damage. Most of the fire damage was to the car port and attic with some fire damage to the kitchen, dining room and living room.