Staff Reports
A Medina couple was awakened by the sound of a smoke detector just before 4 a.m. Thursday.
Mark Snider and his wife tried to leave their home at 113 Worthy Ave. by going down the stairs and out the front door, but heavy smoke prevented the couple from doing so, said Medina Fire Department Public Information Officer Jeffrey Elsenheimer. Instead, he said that Snider tied sheets together and lowered his wife first, and then himself, out a second-story window to the porch below. The couple then called 911 from a neighbor’s house.
At 4 a.m. the Medina Fire Department and a FAST team from the Lyndonville Fire Department were dispatched to the Snider’s home for the report of smoke in a residence. The first arriving unit found nothing showing from the exterior, but further updated incoming responders of heavy smoke on the first floor of the 2 1/2-story, single-family dwelling.
Elsenheimer said that crews quickly searched the house for the source of the smoke.
As crews entered the basement they heard an unusual sound — the sound of rushing water.
As crews advanced into the basement, they found a ruptured water line, with water freely flowing on to a charred work table.
Medina fire investigators determined the fire started from an electrical problem in a power strip on top of the work table. Elsenheimer said the fire spread from the power strip to other material on the work table and eventually ignited the wall behind the work table. He said that that was when temperatures elevated enough to cause the soldering at a joint on the water line to fail, causing a rush of water that extinguished the developing fire.
Although smoke detectors did alert the occupants to the fire, there was only one detector for the entire house, at the top of the stairs on the second floor.
The Medina Fire Department reminds residents to install smoke alarms on every level of your home, including the basement.
