Houston, TX, February 19, 2012: Firefighters with the Champions Emergency Services District rescued a woman from a burning home Sunday, with the assistance of fire crews from the Klein and Ponderosa fire departments, as well as Paramedics from Cypress Creek EMS. At about 8:25 am, Champions was dispatched to a reported transformer fire on Indian Wells near Boyce Springs in the Greenwood Forest subdivision. Just after the initial dispatch, the communications center received a report that a home was also on fire, and the call was upgraded to a “box-alarm,” summoning additional resources from Champions, as well as automatic aid from Ponderosa and Klein fire departments, and Cypress Creek EMS. Crews arrived within five minutes of dispatch to find a heavy smoke and fire condition from a 1-story residence. Dispatch information obtained from callers indicated that the occupant was not accounted for. Crews immediately entered the structure with a hose line to conduct a search of the home and locate the fire. The fire inside was found to have overtaken the kitchen area, with thick, toxic smoke and heat spreading throughout the home. Despite these obstacles, crews inside quickly found the resident in her bedroom. She was rushed out of the home by firefighters to a Paramedic-staffed EMS unit which had just arrived on scene, where life-saving treatment was initiated. EMS response to the incident was accelerated thanks to a new response protocol which sends a Paramedic EMS unit to the scene of any reported structure fire.
Following the rescue operation, crews were able to quickly extinguish the fire without further incident while EMS treated the patient and prepared her for transport to the hospital. The cause of the fire was determined to be from a tree behind the house which had fallen on a high-voltage distribution line, which then fell on the home, energizing the entire residence with high-voltage electricity. A second home was damaged from the electrical shock, but did not sustain fire damage.
Champions ESD would like to thank the calling parties who supplied the dispatch center with critical information which contributed to this life-saving effort.
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