House burns down, family blames Saraland Fire Department

SARALAND, Ala. (WALA) - A house fire in Saraland last night has destroyed everything the family owned.  It also claimed the life of their 13-year-old dachshund “Bama.” 

Friday, they are lashing out at the Saraland Fire Department, blaming their losses on what they call poor response.

Members of the Harris family sifted through the charred remains of their house.  A fire broke out Thursday evening and quickly spread, destroying everything. 

Richard Harris was sitting in his living room when he smelled smoke.

“There’s smoke boiling up through the hallway. And I go back to my son’s room, and as soon as I turn the door on my son’s room, it blew me and the door out in the hallway,” Harris said.

Harris called 911 for help from the Saraland Fire Department a half a mile away.  He said a truck arrived within a few minutes, but that’s when things started going bad.

“Me and my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law physically had to help them pull the fire hose down the driveway because there weren’t enough firefighters on the truck to get the fire hose down to the fire,” said Harris.  “They wouldn’t come down the driveway because they said the truck wouldn’t fit.”

According to Harris, it took 27 minutes from the time the 911 call was made until the first drop of water hit the fire.  By then, the fire had engulfed the entire home.

The only thing the Harris’s were able to salvage were small items like an old picture and a story book.  Everything else was a total loss. 

Their real question is, “Why it took the fire department so long to help when they’re only a half a mile away?”

Assistant Chief Dewey Stringfellow said the department encounters situations like this periodically where narrow drives and obstructions prevent the larger truck from getting close and jumping on a fire quickly, and that was the case on Thursday.

“In this particular unfortunate situation, we had a narrow driveway. And with this size ladder truck, there was just no way we could make the turn to get this apparatus closer to the house,” Stringfellow said.

The Harris’s could only watch as the fire took everything they owned away from them.  It torched their home, a storage building and a vehicle.

“That’s everything we had.  We don’t have insurance on it or nothing,” Harris said.  “It’s all gone so we just start over again; that’s all you can do.”

The family said they are considering taking legal action against the city for what they’re calling poor response. 

For now, they’re staying with other members of the family until they can find another place to live.