March 20, 2001

PRESS RELEASE

To: Newsroom

For Immediate Release

Contact: Brian A. Crawford, Public Information Officer

Phone: 673-6652, cell: 455-2609, page: 675-2137

Cedar Grove Home Damaged by Fire

■ Children playing with fire suspected to be cause

Mary Brooks stated that she was out in the front yard of her Cedar Grove home enjoying the good weather, talking with neighbors, when her two grandchildren, three, and four, came out of the front of the house. When the children opened the front door of the residence at 510 West 82^nd Street, Brooks, 51, smelled smoke. She went inside to investigate and found a small spot on her sofa on fire. Brooks then went to the kitchen to retrieve some corn meal and flour to douse the fire. When she returned to the living room, the fire was now involving the entire couch.

When firefighters from the nearby St. Vincent station arrived on the scene at 1:24 p.m., smoke was blowing out of the front two windows of the home. District Chief Bobby Robinson, ensured that all occupants were safely out of the home, initiated a fire attack on the structure with eight to ten firefighters, using two inch-and-three-quarter hose lines. The fire was under control at 1:44 p.m.

Brooks told fire officials that the children may have started the fire by placing something in the home’s stove top, where she was cooking beans, and then taken it to the couch. Fire investigators have made no official determination. The damage to the home was extensive and listed as heavy. Additionally, Brooks’ 1991 Cutlass Calais, parked under the carport at the time of the blaze, also sustaining major fire damage. Mary’s son, Larry Brooks, 24, sustained minor smoke inhalation and was treated an released by Fire Department paramedics at the scene.

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