Fireworks damage house

Nationwide, fireworks are the leading cause of fires on the Fourth of July.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS -- Florence Griffin was inside the house where she's lived almost 80 years, reciting the rosary, as she does every night, when a stray bottle rocket from a neighbor's Fourth of July celebration flew into a pine tree at the corner of her house and set it ablaze.
In an instant, Griffin's house was ablaze too, and her neighbors were running for garden hoses and fire extinguishers.
If it weren't for her prayers, the house might have burned to the ground, said Griffin's niece, Mary Lou Casey, who was on the front porch when the fire started.
Griffin, who is blind in one eye and just had surgery on the other, was oblivious to the fire until her niece, who is in town to look after her aunt while she recovers from her surgery, rushed in and told her that they had to leave.
Casey's 23-year-old son, Ryan, and neighbors tried to extinguish the fire, and slowed its spreading, but the fire department was needed to extinguish the blaze, which burned the rear corner of Griffin's house from the ground to the roof.
"I've lived here all my life. I came when I was 6 or 7, and I'm 85 now," Griffin said of the house her father built on Wilson Street.
"My grandfather used to do the Irish jig in the kitchen," Casey added.
Generations of memories
The thought of losing the house that so many generations of her family have called home, Griffin said, was unbearable.
When she realized the house was on fire, Griffin's niece said, "she started screaming, 'Take me now!' It was very traumatic."
After the fire department extinguished the fire, Griffin, her niece and grand nephew returned to the house but were forced out again when the fire rekindled.
Luckily, the fire did not re-ignite after firefighters extinguished it the second time.
Damage estimates were not available, the insurance company was delayed by the Monday holiday, Casey said.
A stray bottle rocket is also believed to be the cause of a fire at 301 Maplewood Ave. that caused significant damage to the roof of a garage Saturday, according to fire department officials.
Nationwide, fireworks are the leading cause of fires on the Fourth of July. According to the National Fire Protection Association, some 24,200 fires were started by fireworks in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
kubik@vindy.com