Catie O’Toole
Syracuse Media Group, N.Y.
TOWN OF CLAY, N.Y. — When Moyers Corners volunteer firefighters were called to a house fire early Saturday in Bayberry, they didn’t immediately realize whose house it was -- until a lieutenant told them.
“He came up to me and said, ‘It’s my house,” First Deputy Chief Colin Bailey said, recalling the moment Moyers Corners Fire Lt. Steve Rush approached him during the fire.
Bailey said he was surprised when he found out.
Rush, a lieutenant at Moyers Corners Station 2, and his family were forced out of their home, and lost nearly all of their personal belongings and family mementos in the fire, according a GoFundMe page.
The family was able to call 911 and get out of the house, at 205 Blackberry Road in the town of Clay, after the fire started in an upstairs bathroom at 1:52 a.m., Bailey said.
Moyers Corners, Clay, Liverpool and Lakeside firefighters, Northern Onondaga Volunteer Ambulance (NOVA), state police, Onondaga County sheriff’s deputies and Onondaga County fire investigators responded.
When police and firefighters arrived, they saw smoke pouring out of the home.
“We had to open up the roof, and cut a hole in it to ventilate it because there was an awful lot of smoke,” Bailey said.
Although they couldn’t see any flames from outside, he said there were flames inside the home.
While firefighters battled the fire, NOVA’s emergency medical services helped Steve Rush who had a cut on his hand, Bailey said. Rush did not go to a hospital, he said.
A Moyers Corners volunteer firefighter suffered heat exhaustion during the fire, Bailey said. The firefighter, who had been helping on the roof of the house, was taken to a local hospital for evaluation and released. Bailey said the firefighter is OK.
Firefighters reported the fire was under control in less than 30 minutes.
Fire investigators determined the fire started in a second-floor bathroom and the cause was “purely accidental,” Bailey said.
Someone in the home had been soldering copper pipes when the insulation caught fire, Bailey said. The fire then spread to the second floor and attic.
There was moderate smoke, water and fire damage upstairs.
The American Red Cross is helping the family, who could not return home immediately after the fire.
The community also has stepped up to help the Rush family, raising more than $6,300 in a day.
All of the money raised will help the Rush family “replace basic health/life necessities for the family while they are unable to live in their home and help keep them afloat while things get sorted out,” according to the online fundraiser.
“Their whole lives have been turned upside down, their family displaced and almost all of their personal belongings and family mementos were destroyed in the fire,” a Moyers Corners firefighter wrote on the GoFundMe page. “For a couple/family who is always giving and truly never asking for anything in return, this is our chance to show our support.”
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