By LaKisha Ladson
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2006 The Dallas Morning News
Charles Buster has spent 25 years fighting other people’s fires. Thursday night, his battle was personal.
Mr. Buster, a volunteer firefighter in Forney, had finished decorating for Christmas with his family when his home fire alarm sounded, then stopped.
He searched the house but, finding nothing, figured it was a “fluke” and settled in to watch TV.
Soon, his 17-year-old son, Adam, went to bed and found smoke in his room. By then, an attic storage room was engulfed in flames.
“I called my brothers to come help,” Mr. Buster said, referring to his colleagues in the partly volunteer, partly paid Forney Fire Department.
The 57-year-old threw on his own gear and went to work as well.
“We had to pretty much force him to just go sit down and take care of his family,” Fire Chief Rick Townsend said.
Firefighters from Crandall and Terrell joined the battle on Pecan Lane, just southwest of Forney, but an hour into the effort, Mr. Buster knew it was a lost cause.
“It’s just nearly impossible to save,” he said, once burning material starts falling from the attic into the rooms below.
The firefighters labored in below freezing temperatures for more than four hours, their efforts complicated by the greater distance to hydrants in the area just outside the city limits.
In the end, the family lost everything except a few pictures and each other.
On Friday, even some walls that remained had to be torn down because they were unstable, Chief Townsend said.
As a small consolation, firefighters might be able to replace Mr. Buster’s commemorative ring from a recent Guns & Hoses boxing tournament in Mesquite, where firefighters square off against police officers to raise money for charities.
Mr. Buster was one of the most senior boxers and went at the tournament just as he does fires, Chief Townsend said: “He trained real hard.”
Mr. Buster said seeing what was left of his home at the end of the night left him feeling sick. But he said his family has insurance, plenty of moral support and faith in God. His older son lives next door and his daughter about a block away. A friend is letting him stay in a trailer.
Mr. Buster said that from now on when he fights fires, he will have a different perspective.
“I have more sympathy,” he said. “I really know how it feels.”