When a fire swept through the home of a local firefighter, the community rallied.
While on duty Saturday afternoon, Jimmy Green, a firefighter with the Cordry-Sweetwater Volunteer Fire Department and a sheriff’s deputy in Brown County, got a call from his alarm company letting him know there was a fire at his house.
Right after that, he got a tearful call from his wife, Kim, who was at home with their grandchild when she discovered their front porch was on fire, Green said.
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The fire, likely caused by electrical issues, quickly spread from the porch to the house, said Lori Fitzgerald, an EMT. Though several members of the fire department at the nearby station doing a training activity, the fire spread quickly on the wooden structure, she said.
Green has been a volunteer firefighter for various fire services since 1978, and has also been a law enforcement officer at various agencies for the last 40 years. For him, it was eye opening to experience firsthand the emotions and loss that fire victims go through, he said.
“I’ve never seen this side of it,” Green said. “It will be totally different from now on. You don’t know what they go through, but now I know firsthand.”
Though his wife, grandchild and dogs got out safe, the home was heavily damaged and the family was displaced.
Since a Facebook post on the department’s page was made shortly after the fire, there has been an overwhelming response from the community, said Fitzgerald, who is an EMT with the department in charge of collecting monetary donations. The post was shared to groups all over southern Johnson County and northern Brown County, and has drawn many to send messages of support and donations, she said.
The department, which covers a portion of Nineveh surrounding the Cordry and Sweetwater lakes, provides mutual aid to many nearby volunteer services like Nineveh, Trafalgar, Hamblen and others. As a result, many know and love Green and want to help, Fitzgerald said.
“We have a really good community here. Anytime anything like this happens, people step in. It is someone who is very important to our community so we have stepped in to help,” Fitzgerald said.
In just a few days, she had collected $1,000, and another member of the department had gathered donations of clothes and other essential items, she said.
The kindness and support are appreciated, Green said.
“I would like to thank everyone for everything they have done. People have reached out on Facebook; they have sent personal messages.” he said. “It has been great.”
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To donate, email Lori Fitzgerald at [email protected] or call/text her at 317-450-8962.
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