FOND DU LAC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Crews are trying to figure out what sparked a Christmas morning fire at an apartment building in North Fond du Lac.
And how a young girl’s curiosity, might have saved lives.
It happened just before 4:30 Christmas morning. That’s when crews responded to the call for an apartment fire at Northern Lights Estate on Harrison Street.
No one was hurt, but resident Sabrina Pittman tells FOX 11 her family lost everything.
“Regardless of the presents that were lost and all of that, I still have the three things that mean most to me.”
Grateful to be alive, Pittman was one of the residents in the burning in the burning apartment.
“If she wouldn’t have gotten up and wouldn’t have been excited I don’t honestly know where we would be right now.”
Pittman is talking about her 13-year-old daughter, Ciara.
It was a little before four in the morning Christmas Day when Ciara thought she heard the sound of her mom wrapping presents and decided to check it out.
“In the reflection of the wall, I could see light, like a big light.” I figured it was just my Christmas tree but, when I finally turned the corner all the way, that’s when I saw the fire.”
She may have heard sounds of crackling, but Pittman says the smoke detectors were silent.
“They had switched all the batteries for the alarms, so I had assumed that they were working properly, but none of our alarms had gone off.”
Ciara’s curiosity may just have been what saved her and her family’s life.
“It’s kind of scary even to think for myself, like what would’ve happened if I stayed sleeping?”
Immediately shaken awake by her panic-stricken daughter, Pittman says she was able to get herself and her three girls out of the blaze safely.
North Fond du Lac firefighters had the flames out in a couple hours, saving several other homes in the 12-unit apartment building.
Unfortunately, the Pittman family won’t be returning to their apartment.
It has been deemed unlivable, and the family lost everything but the clothes on their backs.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help replace what’s been lost.
With no place to store items right now, the family says monetary donations would be most helpful.
