Burkburnett Fire Engulfs Home
By: Lindsey Wopschall
Updated: January 7, 2013
A Burkburnett man is without a home after a fire sparks around eleven this morning.
I spoke with the man who lived in the home and he said he was unsure just how the fire sparked.
He said he'd been renting the house and several months ago was having trouble with the fire alarm.
He said he talked to management about the problem but they didn't do anything about it.
So when he heard the smoke detector go off he disregarded it only to find a flames in one of his closets.
Smoked poured out from this Burkburnett home at 1101 Prestige.
The street lined with fire crews working to stop the flames, which Robert Bell, who lived in the home says thought was all a false alarm.
"I heard a couple of chirps and I disregarded them at first thinking thinking it was just a mess up and then I walked over just to make sure and there was a pretty good blaze in that closet," he said.
A blaze which fire crews say burned at a rapid pace.
"A lot of the houses, newer homes have a heavy fire load, a lot of the stuff will get a lot hotter and burn a lot faster. so that makes it progress a lot quicker," said Cory Brinkley a Burkburnett firefighter.
Quick enough for bell to come out with nothing.
"I lost everything. I lost my college books, I lost my furniture. Oh gosh, I lost everything in there. It's going to take me a month or two to get back on my feet," said Bell.
But what's important is that he's alive, with only some minor injuries to show for it.
"It singed that arm, I am still coughing up black stuff and I only had one or two breathes of it," Bell said.
And now Bell will begin the new year from scratch having to build back up what was burned down.
Firefighter consider the home a "total loss."
The Red Cross is assisting bell.
And the fire remains under investigation.
