Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
By SHARON SHARPE and BOB USSERY
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Smoke could be seen 10 miles away Sunday as a fire in the Pirate’s Harbor subdivision south of Slidell destroyed two raised camp-style houses and damaged two others, sending a firefighter to a hospital and forcing one occupant to jump from a third-level window.
The fire broke out about 3:45 p.m. at 54383 Louisiana 433, four miles south of Interstate 10. The houses, consisting of two levels above stilts, are next to a canal connecting to nearby Lake Pontchartrain, the St. Tammany Parish Fire Department said.
Homeowner Charles Wolfe had lost his home in Irish Bayou to Katrina and had just closed on the purchase of the elevated home. He said he has been living in the house since December and was renovating it; the hardwood floors had just been redone.
Also living in the house were Daniel Barnett and Wolfe’s fiancée, Ashley Cessac, who was at work when the fire started.
Wolfe, who works nights on the Interstate 10 twin span for Boh Bros., said he was sleeping on the second floor when a friend who had been fishing off the back porch awoke him.
“It accelerated so fast,” he said of the fire; the whole house was ablaze in less then 10 minutes, he said. Wolfe said he didn’t know Barnett was sleeping on the third floor until he heard a window breaking. He said he said Barnett coming out the window and “the flames followed right behind him.”
Chris Kaufmann, chief of fire prevention, who did not provide names of the occupants, said two occupants on the lower level noticed smoke by the back porch. They awoke three occupants on the upper level.
Kaufmann said everyone was able to escape by stairs except a person on the third level, a teenage boy, who reached the stairs as they began to burn, Kaufmann said. He said the boy suffered minor injuries, and was able to walk around at the fire scene.
Kaufmann said the fire’s cause is under investigation, but that officials don’t think it is suspicious.
A southerly wind spread the fire to the next house north of 54383 Louisiana 433. That house, which was unoccupied and undergoing renovation, was destroyed. Two doors north of the original fire, a boarded-up house suffered fell victim to the wind-driven fire. About half of that house was destroyed.
The fire also damaged or destroyed several vehicles, three boats, two boat docks and a private camper trailer, and melted siding on the house to the south of the building where the fire began. The shifting wind directed heat from the fire against a fire truck, damaging its paint, melting a light and cracking the windshield.
Firefighters were also plagued by three grass fires that were spread by the wind, one across the highway.
A Department of Forestry helicopter picked up water to douse the fires out of Bayou Liberty while the Pirogue Races men’s finals were at the starting line.
Two firefighters suffered heat exhaustion. One was taken to a hospital for observation, and the other was treated at the scene.