The Akron Beacon Journal
BATH TWP., Ohio — A fire early Friday claimed most of a home overlooking a main intersection, but the homeowner and his dog escaped, thanks in part to a Bath Township police officer.
The fire began around 2 a.m. at a yellow house on a hill above Yellow Creek and Cleveland-Massillon roads.
Part-time Officer Lane Watson, 26, drove by about 10 minutes later and saw flames.
“He was just driving along his normal patrol,” Bath Township Chief Mike McNeely said of the rookie officer.
Watson pulled over and raced up the winding driveway, McNeely said. The officer beat on the door with his baton, causing the dog to bark as the homeowner exited the burning building.
A relative of the homeowner said that neither she nor the homeowner wanted to talk.
“We have a family tragedy up here. So goodbye,” she said Friday as she turned to walk back toward the home.
Police reported the homeowner suffered minor injuries, perhaps burns to a foot.
The cause of the fire, which McNeely figures ravaged 60 percent of the home, was not immediately determined.
A gaping black hole in the roof exposed the second floor as the insurance company sought to board up the home and assess damage. State and local fire officials from Bath and Richfield were on the scene throughout the day. The fire was under control by 6 a.m.
McNeely couldn’t say if a car crash an hour later at the nearby intersection was caused by a driver distracted by the commotion or the normal rush-hour bustle.
Watson, who works the midnight shift, was unavailable for comment Friday afternoon.
McNeely called Watson, a recent University of Akron graduate, “a very fine young man with a bright future ahead of him.”
Hopefully, Watson was getting some sleep, McNeely said, adding: “I told him he smelled like smoke when he left this morning.”
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