ASK JACKSON

The Southeast Missourian asked people about their family's experience with fire.

Myrna Hensley: "About 13 years ago, I got a call at work from a neighbor that my house was on fire. They had called the fire department, and by the time I got there, the fire was out. It was an electrical fire that started behind the stove. I lost everything in the house."

Charles Wehrenberg: "When I was about 2 years old, someone tried to light a candle on our Christmas tree, and it caught the branch on fire. My grandfather was there and he grabbed the burning tree and got it out of the house. It burned his hands badly, but he saved the house."

Hilda Wallman: "My experience was not really bad. We had lived in a log house and moved out to our new house that we built. So we had the Fruitland Fire Department come out and burn it down as a training exercise. It was raining a little when they started the fire."

Clayton Randol: "We were at a ball game about a year ago, when we got home, we found our garage on fire. We dropped my sister off at a neighbor's house and they called the fire department. The garage was about 10 feet from the house. It burned down, but the house did not catch fire."

Michael Jones: "An apartment building that my dad owns caught fire. A little girl was playing with matches and a candle. It started in the basement and almost burned down the building, but the firefighters got there to put it out. We had to remodel four apartments. Luckily, no one was seriously injured."