August 25, 2009

Neighbor saved fire victim from blaze

By Sam Craig
of The Chronicle

     Late last Thursday night, Ed Schenck had a feeling that he needed to look out the window. He walked to the living room where his wife Angie and their son Jeff were watching TV and pulled back the curtains. When Ed looked across the street, he saw flames coming from a neighbor’s house.
     It was then that Ed and his son jumped into action and helped to save his neighbors from the approaching fire. The Aug. 20 fire that consumed two West 12th Street homes may have had a different outcome if Ed hadn’t looked out the window at that moment.
     Ed stepped out of the door and saw thick, black smoke pouring out of the house and bright flames lighting up the sky. It was getting late and Angie had fallen asleep before waking up to an emergency.
     “Just before midnight,” Angie said, “I heard him yell at our son, Jeff, ‘Grab your phone and call 911. The house across the street is on fire.’”
     Ed and Jeff ran out of the house to the home across from them. The flames were already exceedingly hot. Though they were able to feel them from their home, they kept going into the heat.
     “I was yelling, ‘Is there anyone in the house?’” Ed said. “I stopped just for a second because it was so hot. About that time, the window opened and a man climbed out the window. I ran over to help him out and he turns and starts yelling inside.”
     The Schenck’s neighbors, Gabriel and Aliva Beasley were trying to escape the fire that was already covering about two-thirds of their home. Gabriel had gotten out and was trying to help his wife escape the flames.
     “I could hear her screaming and black smoke was pouring out of the window,” Ed said. “He started yelling, ‘Come to the window, come to the window.’ Finally she got to the window and he grabbed her arm, and obviously he’s not going to get her out by one arm, so I just pushed him out of the way and reached under her arm pits and lifted her out and pulled her onto the ground.”
     Ed and Liva tumbled to the ground, where the problems weren’t over.
     “The grass was on fire around the house,” Ed said. “It’s one of those things where I didn’t think about it, I just did it. I don’t recall any kind of weight or effort, it was just up and out and we fell back onto the ground and then I helped her get back over to the curb. About that time, the ambulance arrived.”
     Standing across the street, Angie was looking on, worried.
     “My husband was trying to pull her out,” she said. “I was watching from up on the stairs. There’s burning grass all around, and my biggest fear was that he was going to catch on fire. He acted quickly, very calmly and all he cared about was getting the people out of there.”
     As soon as the Besleys were clear from the fire, Ed noticed a new problem springing up next door at the home of Gary and Pam Olson.
     “It was another 10 or 20 minutes before the fire department showed up and started attacking the fire,” Ed said. “By that time, the house next door was on fire. I told my son to go to the house to the west of them and bang on the door to make sure they’re up. Gary, the other neighbor, got out of his house and ran around back to keep the fire from spreading to his house.”
     Unfortunately the fire had already spread. It caught the Olson’s boat on fire, melting parts of it, before moving on to the house.
     “When the fire department showed up, it took them a while to get things set up,” Ed said. “By that time, both houses were so fully engulfed that it took them two or three hours to get the fire under control and four hours before they could start mopping up. I’d never seen a house fire before. I’ve seen the aftermath, but to actually witness it and see the destruction, it was pretty crazy.”
     Some of the neighbors were taken to the hospitals and Ed went back home where he and Angie watched firefighters from many different areas around the gorge as they finished the job. Firefighters from The Dalles, Dallesport, Hood River and other areas all joined to get the blaze under control.
     Ed said what he did just came naturally.
     “When it was all said and done, I was just doing what a neighbor would do,” he said. “I didn’t even think about it. Then all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘What the heck was I doing?’ The grass was on fire and the house was on fire, but we glad we were there. I couldn’t have lived with myself knowing there was somebody in the house. But I didn’t do it to say, ‘Hey, look at me.’ I did what anyone else would do.”
     The Schencks didn’t know their neighbors very well. They moved out to The Dalles last year from Medford. Angie was teaching fifth grade at Dry Hollow Elementary, but was laid off after budget cuts at the end of the school year. Ed had been here since October, but was unemployed until two months ago when he got a job as the manager of Kay Jewelers.
     They didn’t know the Besleys’ names when Ed rushed it. Aside from that night, the Schencks still haven’t met the Besleys.
     “I’d seen them outside a couple of times,” Ed said. “I don’t know their names, never had met them, but on something like this, all that stuff didn’t matter. We haven’t lived in our house very long, only a couple of months, then all of a sudden, something like this and you really get to know your neighbors.”
     Angie said she couldn’t be prouder of her husband, and even though he is a little wary of calling himself brave, Angie has no problem.
     “My husband wouldn’t want to be called a hero,” Angie said. “But I call him a hero.”