By Ginger G. Golden
Derby Informer – November 20, 2013
Submitted by Newz Group Clipping Service – November 22, 2013
A Rose Hill family is counting their blessings to have all made it out alive after a fire destroyed their home this past week.
The fire started in the attic of the house in the 200 block of N. Main Street. The call came in at 10:13 p.m. Tuesday, November 12.
Owner Maggie Cooke said she had just gone to bed when the fire started. She, her husband and their two children, ages 11 and 9, made it out of the house.
Temperatures that night fell to below freezing.
“It was really cold to be outside in your jammies,” she said.
Butler County Fire District 3 in Rose Hill was assisted by Douglass’ Butler County Fire District 8, the Andover Fire Department and Sedgwick County firefighters.
Rose Hill Fire Chief Jim Woydziak said crews were fighting hot spots for over 12 hours before leaving the home shortly before noon on Wednesday.
“We believe the cause to be electrical in the wall upstairs near the furnace,” he said. “It was thought that it may have been a furnace fire, but after the investigation and looking at the furnace, it was not a furnace fire. It may have been the wires to the furnace, that we couldn’t say, but it was electrical inside the wall.”
The house was built in 1920. Cooke said the house was moved to its current location after that, but said she was not sure when.
“I have not sat down to make a damage estimate, but the house is a total loss,” said Woydziak.
Cooke’s insurance company temporarily put the family in an Andover hotel. Cooke’s parents, from Haysville, were at the house the day after the fire helping her clean up.
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