Firefighter’s Fireworks Spark Fire At Her Own Home
Jul 25, 2019, 8:55 PM
MORGAN – As an EMT, at the Morgan Fire Department, who recently became certified to fight wildland fires, Teisha Emery says she was well aware of the precautions she needed to take before lighting fireworks at her home.
“(I was) trying to make memories with the kids, so I decided to buy fireworks on a whim,” Emery explained. “We were on our very last pack, very last firework, and it tipped over, and one of them came out back to the neighbors, and the other one smacked the tree.”
Emery said she had a bucket of water, and a garden hose open, ready to spray on-hand. In the ten or so seconds it took for her to put the firework out, fire had already traveled up a tree in front of her house.
“I heard the crackling of the tree,” Emery recalled. “By the time I got water on it, it was already six feet up the tree. It was already engulfed in flames.”
She had immediately started spraying it with the hose.
“We ended up hitting it with that, and grabbed hoses from the neighbors,” Emery said. “It just wasn’t enough. A garden hose just isn’t enough for these types of fires.”
Luckily, some of her co-workers, with Morgan Fire Department arrived quickly. Several other agencies initially responded too. The flames were put out in a short amount of time, leaving some smoke in the attic, and burnt siding. Emery says the tree is a good example of how quickly brush can burn under hot, dry conditions.
“They may be green on the outside, but that inside just will go up,” Emery said. “It’s just like any other wildland fire. That type of dry brush just goes up like that.”
Emery’s husband is a firefighter too. He was away on a 48-hour shift at the time. Emery says there’s at least one thing she might have done differently.
“Just sticking bricks around all of your fireworks, to make sure that if they do even tip over, that it doesn’t end up going to your house,” Emery said. “Thank God that it didn’t hit any of the kids and that none of us were hurt, and we still have a home to sleep in.”
