Aug. 28—A father and his young son died in a house fire in Ardmore early Thursday morning after their house became engulfed in flames shortly after midnight, according to the Ardmore Volunteer Fire Department.
The call to Limestone County 911 went out at approximately 12:19 a.m., according to Ardmore Volunteer Fire Chief Tim Toone, and when firefighters entered the residence on Alabama 251 they located an unconscious 7-year-old boy.
“The residence was kind of like one of these storage buildings converted into a tiny home,” Toone said. “We located the 7-year-old and brought him out and started CPR on him. They went back in and searched again and that’s when they found the father. That was about five minutes later and they got him out and started CPR on him.”
Toone said the father initially had a pulse but was not breathing and soon after went into cardiac arrest. There were five people living in the home, he said, including a father, mother and their three children.
“They were unharmed but transported to Athens-Limestone Hospital’s ER for observation, and they were, you know, scratched up and so forth,” Toone said of the three survivors.
Ardmore Volunteer Fire Department, Elkmont Volunteer Fire Department and East Limestone Volunteer Fire Department all responded to the scene.
Toone said an Elkmont firefighter suffered smoke inhalation in his attempt to carry residents out of the burning house.
“He went to the ER and was treated and released and he’s got to do some follow-up visits with the physician,” Toone said. “But his injuries were minor.”
He said the state fire marshal is investigating the case.
Limestone County Coroner Mike West said he responded to the scene around 1 a.m.
“One (body) was found in the north side of the building and one was found on the south side of the building,” West said.
He said an autopsy is being conducted on the deceased 38-year-old father and his son and a cause of death is still to be determined.
Toone said the last time he saw a fire in Ardmore of this magnitude and destruction was more than 10 years ago when an arsonist began burning things on a property that caught a house on fire.
“We’ve had one fatality about 10 to 12 years ago,” Toone said. “This was actually an arson fire. We knew we had an arsonist, just couldn’t figure out who it was and things kind of started falling together.”
West said he could not release the names of the victims of Thursday’s fire, but Toone said the home belonged to the Griffin family. Neighborhood Bridges Ardmore, a community assistance program operated locally by the Greater Ardmore Chamber of Commerce, is collecting donations for the family. Toone said donations can also be made at any North Alabama Bank branch.
— wesley.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442.