Little Cypress fire leads to rescue

Orange, TX -- In the wee hours of Sunday morning, while most people slept in their beds, Tanager Trail in Little Cypress was lit by the blaze of a house on fire, and the mayhem of trying to rescue the family from within.

While husband and wife Matt and Tracey Agee were asleep upstairs in their two-story home around 12:13 a.m. Sunday, son Brad Agee and his friend Kevin Dickens were relaxing on the back porch in front of the family's chiminea outdoor fireplace, Tracey Agee said.

The fire was growing low, so the boys went in through the house to the garage in order to smoke cigarettes and get some more fuel for the fire. While smoking near some gasoline containers, an ash or spark from one of the still-lit cigarettes landed on a container and ignited, Tracey Agee said.

The boys tried to open the garage doors but couldn't, and then picked up the container to move through the house and outside. The heat became too much and Dickens dropped the can, which sloshed the highly combustible liquid everywhere, spreading the fire. Agee is only thankful that they did not carry the blaze out of the garage and into the house.

"Trying to move it was the worst thing they could have done, the firefighters told us later," Agee said. "This would have been a whole different story if they had dropped it in the living room."

Escape

After trying for several moments to quell the blaze themselves, Brad Agee quickly realized it was spreading out of control and raced upstairs to his alert the household. By the time Tracey and Matt were awakened, smoke had already filled the house.

They rushed downstairs to the front door, only to find it deadbolted shut without a key in sight. Trying not to panic, they dropped to the ground and crawled through the house and out through a side door.

"We couldn't see from the smoke," Tracey Agee said. "Mark, being so tall, dropped to his hands and knees to lead the way out."

Kevin Dickens was the only one to sustain burns during the fire, receiving second degree burns to his legs.

Once safely outside, a new horror began: How to rescue the family pets from inside? Trapped there were the family's three dogs, a ferret and a cat.

Pet rescue

Help arrived in the form of the Little Cypress Fire Department, which set about putting out the fire - no small feat when the nearest fire hydrant lay hundreds of yards away at the entrance to the subdivision.

The fire department had to transport their own water to the scene. They began hosing down the garage, breaking down the doors and spraying through a window that had blasted out from the heat.

After the fire was extinguished, firefighters Darin Armfield, Rossetta Brewer, Ray Garza and Scott McDonald entered the home and were able to rescue the three dogs and the ferret, performing "mouth to snout" resuscitation in order to save them.

Sadly, Kitsie the cat was unable to be located until afterwards and was not saved.

"These firefighters just brought them out one by one, and gave them mouth to mouth resuscitation, oxygen, saving them," Tracey Agee said, overcome with emotion. "They are our heroes."

The fire department agrees and has named the four firefighters, their "Pet Heroes."

Rescued were Jackson, a pitbull; Jazzie, a black Labrador; Scarlett, a dachshund; and Pink, an albino ferret. They're all convalescing in the care of Dr. Jason Foskey at Foskey's Veterinary Clinic in Orange.

Aftermath

The Orange chapter of the American Red Cross came to the family's aid, along with many neighbors, family and friends to help the Agees in the aftermath.

"So many friends and neighbors came to our aid," Tracey Agee said. "We were out here in the cold in pajamas, without shoes and they just brought us everything. Bob Martin with the Red Cross set us up in the hotel and brought us the essentials at 3 a.m. - things you don't think about that we needed like toothbrushes and shampoo."

The family was installed in the Orange Best Western Inn, where they will remain until they can find a temporary home for the three months that Farmers Insurance company estimates the cleanup and renovation of their home will take.

"We will have to find a house or an apartment for three months, but it won't be easy with all the pets," Agee said. "I've learned a few important lessons from this: Never store gas in your garage, use metal doors and don't lock your doors with deadbolts. It's likely that you will have a fire before someone breaks into your house."

Agee says she is not angry with the boys, because the fire was accidental.

"But," she admits, "if the firefighters hadn't been able to save my animals it might have been a whole different story."