Christmas fire displaces another township family
Published Friday, January 04, 2008
Christmas Day didn’t quite turn out the way Billy and Patience Biedler had hoped.
A turkey fryer being readied to cook a family’s Christmas dinner malfunctioned Tuesday and burned the Billy and Patience Biedler home.
Patience said the family opened some of their gifts Christmas morning and they were getting ready for their extended family to arrive for the big holiday meal.
The family had just checked the fryer moments before the blaze started, according to Patience. That was around 2:30 p.m.
“A minute later, I opened up the garage door and there were flames,” she said. “I screamed and told everyone there was a fire.”
Family members grabbed a fire extinguisher from under the kitchen sink and knocked down the flames.
“We got the fire out three or four times, but it just kept igniting,” Patience said.
Someone dropped a blanket over the fryer to try and smother the blaze and carry the equipment out of the garage, but by then it was too hot.
The fire quickly spread to the ceiling in the garage. By the time the flames hit the rafters and insulation, they shot quickly into the house.
“You feel helpless watching your house burn,” Patience said. “We basically left the house with the clothes on our back. Everything is gone.”
One blessing from the day came when Billy realized he’d taken off his wedding ring and placed it on the kitchen counter when starting to prepare the Christmas meal. Firefighters went inside the burning home to retrieve the ring.
Billy and Patience were also able to get a few important papers from inside two of the upstairs bedrooms before the fire spread. A couple photo albums from the home’s basement were also salvaged by firefighters.
The new toys the Biedler’s children had opened earlier that day were gone. Patience said the kids were able to enjoy a couple games of their family’s big holiday gift -- Guitar Hero III and Rock Star -- prior to the fire. The video games and everything else inside was destroyed or severely smoke or water damaged.
One person, Carlie Gibson, was transported to the hospital for possible smoke inhalation. She was home by Wednesday.
The blaze was the second tragedy for Patience Biedler’s children over the past month. Patience’s ex-husband, Tom Gibson, lost his family’s Star Prairie Township home to fire Dec. 5.
“It’s been a horrible month,” Patience said in a phone interview on the way back from her grandmother’s funeral Thursday. “My kids’ sense of security has to be gone.”
She said her faith in God has helped her and her family through the recent tragedies.
“We all learn things through the experiences we face,” she said. “You learn endurance. And God is what I keep holding onto.”
Still, the family has been struggling with little sleep and growing worries about the future in the wake of the tragedy.
“Everything goes through your head -- the what ifs, the things you can’t do anything about,” she said. “You think about the things you’ll never get back, like my uncle’s toy tractors that were in the house. They’re all melted. There are all those sentimental things that you’ll never get back.”
A fund has been set up at The RiverBank for the Biedler family. Donations can be deposited at any RiverBank branch office.
The Biedlers were renting the home, but didn’t have any renter’s insurance in force presently. They were housed in a local motel by the Red Cross for the next several days.
The family was able to find a home to rent over the weekend and is settling in, according to Patience.
Patience said the family wants to thank all the firefighters, friends and neighbors who rallied to help the family.
Because some of the Biedlers left the house in stocking feet and no coats, neighbors rallied to make sure everyone stayed warm. Hats, mittens and boots were gathered up for all to wear.
Donations also came in quickly to help the family, with promises of more help to come.
“Everybody’s been wonderful,” she said. “We want to say a huge thank you to everyone.”
