By MARGIE TRAX PAGE - mtrax@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon
ASHTABULA —
A hot dog dinner cost a Samuel Avenue family their home and a cat Sunday evening after a kitchen fire quickly spread and destroyed the house and its contents.
Lori Ferl was cooking dinner in her house at 5210 Samuel Ave. when she turned away from the stove “for a few minutes,” she said.
“When I got back to the stove I couldn’t believe the flames. They where everywhere, in the ceiling, in the cabinets and up the walls. I just started screaming,” she said.
The house was full of people as son Jerry Ferl II was tutoring a friend in math. His daughter, Ryleigh, 7, was playing outside in the yard.
“My mom came in and said there was a fire in the kitchen and she looked frantic, but I thought it can’t be that bad. It was that bad and more,” he said. “By the time I got to the kitchen the fire was out of control.”
No one was injured in the fire and though the family got two dogs and two cats out of the burning house, they fear their elderly cat died in the fire.
Ashtabula and Ashtabula Township firefighters worked to control the fire, breaking all the windows to ventilate the smoke. Flames curled around the eaves of the roof and melted the shingles and siding from the house. The family’s car in the driveway was damaged by heat, falling glass and charred wood. Vinyl siding on the house next door melted and warped from the intense heat.
Lori Ferl said she was stunned by how quickly the fire spread through the entire house.
“It was unstoppable, just completely unstoppable,” she said. “It all happened so fast, so fast. I have never seen anything like it. The fire literally chased us out the door. There was no putting it out.”
Jerry Ferl II said firefighters told him the home was a “complete loss.”
“Looking at it now, I don’t think there is any doubt that there will be nothing left. We left with the dogs, the two cats and the clothes on our backs. This is unbelievable,” he said.
The home is insured, Lori Ferl said.
Donations of money, food, clothing, furniture and home items can be donated to the family through the Friends in Christ Bible Fellowship in Ashtabula. The church is located at 807 Adams Ave. to donate call 993-0516.
Lori wears size 10 jeans; Jerry Ferl I wears 36 by 34 pants and XXL shirts. Jerry Ferl II wears 32 by 32 pants and large shirts.
