Smoke alarms help residents escape fire that destroys home

 

Smoke alarms helped four people escape from a fire that destroyed a two-story home just west of Clinton on Tuesday morning, authorities said.

The fire was reported at about 6 a.m. Tuesday at 1604 Hidden Hills Drive, just north of State Route 61 between Oak Ridge and Clinton.

Firefighters determined that the fire started on a porch, although the cause is unknown, said Stephanie Fox, chief of the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department.

All four people inside the home escaped with no injuries, Fox said. Smoke alarms went off and woke up the residents, Fox said Wednesday.

By the time firefighters arrived, the front porch and roof were on fire, or “fully involved,” Fox said. Firefighters fought the fire from outside the home in what is known as a defensive attack.

The fire burned the house and a car in the garage.

An Anderson County Sheriff’s Department incident report said a man at the house saw smoke coming from the air vents when he woke up. The man told Deputy Robert J. Collins that he got everyone else out of the house safely.

Besides the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department, the Oak Ridge Fire Department and Andersonville Volunteer Fire Department also responded. So did the Anderson County EMS and Anderson County Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating the fire. Fire units were at the home until about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Fox said.

It’s one of several recent fires in Anderson County. Another fire was reported on Friday night in Claxton, and a residential fire was reported at 478 Clear Branch Road south of Rocky Top, the former Lake City, on Wednesday morning, January 24. In that fire, the home owner told Collins, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department deputy, that he was welding plastic and briefly left his tools unattended. When he returned to his work area, the home owner said, “everything was on fire,” according to an incident report.

The man ran outside and threw a water hose through a window to try to extinguish the fire, but there was no water coming out of the house, the report said.

Andersonville, Medford, and Briceville volunteer fire departments responded to that fire.

The previous week, a fire destroyed a home at the intersection of Hidden Valley Road and Laurel Road on Friday evening, January 19. No one was injured in that fire, and at last check, the cause was under investigation. That fire was also north of state Route 61 between Oak Ridge and Clinton in Anderson County, not far from the Hidden Hills Drive fire on Tuesday.

In the Hidden Valley Road fire, the home owner, who responded from her work place in Knoxville, told Deputy Adam Warren that she had left the house around 7:10 a.m. that Friday, and no one else should have been at the home. That fire rekindled around 7 a.m. that Saturday (January 20), and the “structure was a total loss,” an incident report said.

Fox said January is typically a busy month for fires. Among the contributing factors are the use of space heaters and fireplaces. Fox said it is important to have smoke detectors. Most fire departments will install smoke detectors for free, Fox said, including Marlow, Oak Ridge, and Clinton.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

 

 

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