FIRE GUTS SHEFFIELD LAKE HOME

Sheffield Lake – A fire in Sheffield Lake Friday afternoon gutted a Pasadena Street home and the dreams of a newly married couple.

Dave Sperry had been renovating the home that he grew up in as a child for the last two months. Friday afternoon he had gone to the home to make sure it was secure. “I had just brought my wife home from the hospital and knowing that I wouldn’t be able to get out here this weekend to do any work I came out to make sure the place was locked up. I checked the garage and made sure all the tools were locked up inside and that the home was locked. Then about an hour and a half later I started getting calls from neighbors telling me that the house was on fire.”

An alert neighbor spotted smoke and fire coming from Sperry’s home around 2:30pm and quickly called 9-1-1. Firefighters from Sheffield Lake arrived within 3 minutes from the time of the call and found the single story home fully involved in fire. Firefighters went defensive against the blaze.

Mutual Aid arrived moments later from Sheffield Village with their Aerial, Lorain, Avon and Avon Lake with Engines. Lorain Firefighters removed a large tree limb from the front of the home so that Sheffield Village’s Aerial truck could set up and attack the blaze through windows and holes they would cut in the roof with chain saws.

Sperry stood and watched as the home he had hoped to move into with his new wife and stepson went up in smoke. “I just got married last November and we have been living in her Condominium in Elyria since the wedding. Her son is still in school there so we didn’t want to pull him out early so I figured I would use this time to really get the place fixed up so it would be nice for us to move into.”

Sperry said it was hard to stand and watch the house burn. “I grew up in this house. My parents bought it back in 1956 – my dad died here in the house. A lot of memories – a lot of sentiment. I am very happy though that nobody was hurt, these Firemen are working hard to save what they can and I appreciate that, I really do.”

Firefighters had the fire knocked down by 4pm.

Officials say that it is still too soon to say what started the fire; they did confirm that the doors to the home were locked when the first crew arrived. Investigators will be at the home Saturday.


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