Skip to content

Firefighter Fights His Own House Fire

2 comments

CORNWALL, CONNECTICUT, VOL. FIRE CAPTAIN RALPH DZENITUS was awakened around 3 am Friday morning from pieces of burning wall dropping into his bedroom.  Realizing that the house was on fire, he got his family out and then sprinted the 1/4-mile to the firehouse where he started up a pumper and responded back home.

WFSB-TV has the video news report:

He was attacking the fire as other units started arriving, but the fire was too well advanced to save the house.  There was only 1,500 gals. in the booster tank and the other engines had to set up a relay from a village pond 500 ft. away.  The fire was initially concentrated in the two-car garage, but it spread into the attic and eventually took out most of the home.

WTNH-TV has about five minutes of raw video taken at the fire scene:

The 4,300-sq. ft. house was built by Dzenitus himself.  There has not yet been a determination by the fire marshal of what caused the fire.

Posted by on July 31, 2009 • Filed under: fire
  • Steve

    I cant believe that residental dwellings with vehicles housed in them are still allowed. As a newsie and as a FF, Ive covered DOZENS of fires that started in a vehicle, in a garage that was part of the residental structure. When I bought my own home, the very first thing I did was to remove the garage door from the basement and board it up! We outlaw live christmas trees in some homes, we outlaw so may other dangerous and not-so-dangerous practices in the homes…but we still allow cars, trucks, boats, airplanes and ATVs filled with gas and faulty home repaired electrical systems to sit right on the other side of the wall from our bedrooms. MADNESS! I hope that Capt. Dzenitus and family are all ok…and I bet the new home will have a detached garage!

  • Steve

    I cant believe that residental dwellings with vehicles housed in them are still allowed. As a newsie and as a FF, Ive covered DOZENS of fires that started in a vehicle, in a garage that was part of the residental structure. When I bought my own home, the very first thing I did was to remove the garage door from the basement and board it up! We outlaw live christmas trees in some homes, we outlaw so may other dangerous and not-so-dangerous practices in the homes…but we still allow cars, trucks, boats, airplanes and ATVs filled with gas and faulty home repaired electrical systems to sit right on the other side of the wall from our bedrooms. MADNESS! I hope that Capt. Dzenitus and family are all ok…and I bet the new home will have a detached garage!