Hadley Twp. – While Sharon Wilfong ran errands, neighbors kept her home from burning.
Earlier this month, Brandon bus driver Debbie McFall was driving students home when she noticed what looked like a large barbecue grill fire near Wilfong’s Big Fish Lake home.
Backing up the bus, she saw flames leaping near the house.
‘I thought it was a doghouse on fire,? said McFall. ‘It was terrible. I thought it was going to catch the house on fire.?
McFall enlisted the help of the neighboring Hanft family, who quickly rounded up more volunteers.
It took neighbors Jerry Hurst and Gary Mazur about 30 minutes to hose down the structure, a mammoth birdhouse set upon a stump about three feet from the Wilfong house.
The fire was burning so hot it melted one of the hoses, said Wilfong, a 40-year resident of the Big Fish Lake area.
The birdhouse, built in 1974 by her father, the late Ford Mehrman, must have spontaneously combusted from old nesting materials inside, said Wilfong.
There’s a moral to the story, she says.
‘Pay attention to your neighbors. I’m so grateful they did.?