Oct. 23, 2012 — Fifteen people escaped from a burning home late Thursday night east of Morehead.
Officials say the fire broke out about 11 p.m. at a home on US 60 when someone lit a fire in the home's fireplace which spread to other parts of the structure.
The Morehead Fire Department responded to the scene.
“We had pretty much 50 percent of the house totally engulfed by the fire,” said Morehead Fire Chief Jeff Anderson. “It took us a couple of hours to get it knocked down.”’
Bill Harvey, who had been staying there after the March 2 tornado destroyed his home, said he and a few of his friends were playing cards throughout the evening and didn’t know anything was wrong.
“I went to the bathroom and came back and I opened the door and I saw smoke coming from underneath the room we were in,” Harvey said. “I ran outside and down to the basement and didn’t see anything.”
“I went on the other end it was in the far basement and in the garage,” Harvey said. “We kicked the door in and flames just went up.”
Harvey said he lit the fireplace about 2.5 hours before the fire broke out.
Everyone inside the home, including two children, a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old, made it safely out of the home.
“We lost everything we had,” Harvey said. “My girl’s school clothes and furniture but I’m going to try to save some of it. We’ll get through it somehow.”
Vickie Harvey, the mother of the two children, was not at the home at the time of the fire. She said she feared the worst after hearing what happened.
“I was asleep last night when they tried to call me,” Vickie Harvey said. “I woke up at 4 a.m. and saw that I had so many missed calls and someone told me the house burnt and my first reaction was, ‘Oh my God, my kids’.”
“I flew to where my daughters were,” she said. “But, thankfully, nobody was hurt. That’s the most important thing to me.”
The fire chief said no foul play is suspected.
“With so many occupants at home and awake at the time of the fire, I believe it’s going to be accidental,” Anderson said.
The fire remains under investigation by the Morehead Fire Department.
MacKenzie Bates can be reached at mbates@themoreheadnews.com or by telephone at 784-4116
