‘You don’t expect it to happen to you,’ Tulsa firefighter says of losing home to blaze
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Tulsa, OK (Tulsa World) — A Tulsa firefighter lost his own home to fire Friday morning after a lightning strike set it ablaze.
Tulsa Fire Capt. Greg DeLozier, who was able to get out safely, had just arrived at his Rogers County home after getting off work in Tulsa.
“You don’t expect it to happen to you,” said DeLozier, who’s been a firefighter for over 20 years and sees situations like it “every day.”
He was the only one in the house at the time.
A strong line of storms had caused damage across northeastern Oklahoma earlier in the morning.
“I was sitting in the recliner, kicking back, relaxing a little,” DeLozier said. “It was raining pretty hard. And then I heard the lightning hit. I knew it was awfully close, but you never expect that it hit your house. I still had electricity.”
But a few minutes later, he noticed his lights flicker and decided, “I might want to go check that out.”
That’s when he noticed smoke coming from the ceiling lights in his kitchen.
“I knew right then that my roof was on fire,” he said.
The fire was reported about 10:45 a.m. Friday, and fire departments from Claremore and Verdigris responded.
Tony Williams, Verdigris deputy fire chief, said the fire “was involved enough that we weren’t able to make an interior attack.”
DeLozier said that after he saw the smoke he grabbed a couple of items and then ran out to his pickup, where he called 911.
“It’s pretty tough,” he said, looking back at the burned-out structure.
“There’s a lot of memories in there.”
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