This afternoon, while having family at our house for a Christmas party, a knock at the door from someone with a request to move the cars because the house across the street is on fire starts creates a permanent memory to an otherwise ordinary Christmas day. We went outside and found the Harris County Sheriff’s Department just standing around, some of them smoking a cigarette. Then I overheard one of them say that they have been driving around all the streets looking for the fire. Seems to me that their dispatcher would have provided an address and if the area is unfamiliar he could pull out a map, GPS or call dispatch for directions. We had all of the cars moved and Jim then took his wrecker and hooked up to the truck in the driveway of the burning house to pull it out of harms way. The interesting part now is that almost 30 minutes after we learn that there is a fire, the police department is on scene but there is no fire department. Now there are flames leaping above the house, the trees in the back yard are on fire, the fence is burning and neighbors house has started to catch fire. The father of my next door neighbor has grabbed a hose is hosing down the roof and wall of the neighbors house that is just starting to burn. We may be able to credit him with preventing a second house from burning.

The fire department finally arrives with a truck and there are a couple small pickup trucks for the fire department. During this time the fire has continued to spread. They open the hydrant just before the first truck arrives and then they hook up the hydrant and then just like you saw on Emergency (Squad 51) they go driving away laying down firehose in the street. About 8 minutes later you can hear the firefighters asking why there is no water. “Someone go open the hydrant”, is heard.

Over the next 30 minutes you would have to say that what seemed like the entire Cypress Volunteer Fire Department has arrived. At one point I counted 16 fire trucks parked along the street, in driveways and on lawns. Add to that the private firefighters vehicles, police department vehicles and the cars already on the street for the holiday and you have an impassable mess on Timbermeadow.

So far you could say that the performance of the fire department has been less than impressive. This is when I became baffled. The house next to the burning one that started to catch fire needed to be entered by the fire department to make sure that there were no hidden fire in that house. Twenty minutes latter a representative of the fire department was still looking for someone that had a key to their house. The owners are not home, we don’t have a key, just break in to the house. Ultimately they did break in through the back door. When they did, their dog got out and was terribly upset. The dog could not be caught without someone getting bit. The dog got away and wound up nearly a 1/2 mile away at a house on Wiley’s street.

The fire department did bring some very impressive machinery that was not even used. They anchored a huge ladder truck right in front of my house but never used it and all of the other trucks we not used and were nowhere near the fire.

Now the house looks like a huge mess. The entire back of the house is gone. I am sure that the master bed room was totally involved, the master bath and other parts of the house. After the clean up was done I was talking to one of the firefighters and he stated that it appeared to have been electrical in nature. He did note however that it did not appear to be from the Christmas tree as half of it was intact.

My heart goes out to the owners of the house. No one should ever have to endure this anytime no less than on Christmas day.