‘We’re alive’ : Sheriff’s family stays strong in spite of fire

By Tony Gonzalez

Published: September 22, 2008

Her hair singed and her hands blackened from a dig through ashes in search of her wedding ring, Liz Fisher, wife of Augusta County Sheriff Randy Fisher, walked through the family’s charred home Monday afternoon, worrying more about the fatigue of the clean-up crew than where she will spend her coming days.

The Fishers’ ranch home at 1718 Rockfish Road, Hermitage, built by the sheriff with friends around 1984, was as burnt black as it was brown after a fire engulfed most of the main floor in minutes around 12:30 a.m. Monday. Crews extinguished the fire, ruled an accident, by 4:22 a.m. Augusta County Fire Department investigators said an electrical fire likely started the blaze that destroyed the $230,000 home.

Liz Fisher never found her wedding ring, but instead wore a notched band, darkened by the fire, which would have fit around the lost diamond.

“Randy and I are fine, our pets are fine,” she said. “It’s a house.”

“It’s just brick, wood and mortar,” said the sheriff of 10 years. “We’re alive.”

Matt and Alex, the family’s two sons, learned of the fire by phone at their respective colleges.

The fire appeared to have started in a closet attached to the master bedroom. Shortly after midnight, Liz Fisher awoke to an odor and left her bed to snack on zucchini bread with her retriever, Abby.

The sheriff was in the basement on the computer.

When Fisher returned to the bedroom she found fire leaping from the closet.

“When I saw the flames, I wondered why my hamper was on fire,” she said. Then laughing again: “I had just ironed everything, that’s what ticked me off.”

“Good thing you got a good smeller,” said Jack Fisher, the sheriff’s father, echoing his daughter-in-law’s joke-filled description of the scene.

The sheriff, barefooted, told his wife to get out of the house before he grabbed keys to his truck, backed it from the garage, and brought out Abby and the family’s second dog, Wolf, a German shepherd, he said.

Neighbors awoke to what sounded like banging and clanging, then exploding windows and Liz Fisher’s voice.

“Once the windows started breaking with the air, it just went,” said Marge Leavell, a neighbor of the Fishers’ for about 25 years. “They’re fortunate they got out. If they’d been another minute, they may not have.”

Among the uncountable items lost was a blanket knit for Liz Fisher’s birth, by her grandmother, and the few pieces of children’s clothing worn by Matt and Alex.

Firefighters saved a laptop computer, some photos and vehicle keys while battling the blaze, the sheriff said.

“These guys are trying to knock a fire down and I’ve got firefighters handing me photos they’d grabbed off the walls,” he said while standing in his neighbor’s oversized shoes just a few feet from a tarp on which photos, newspapers and sheriff campaign signs lay near two salvaged drawers. “It amazed me.”

Family and friends joined the clean-up crew, which by 4 p.m. had removed a propane tank, dropped off a storage unit, dog pen and portable toilet, and hauled away appliances. Vehicles were parked across the front lawn while friends tossed burned items into a Dumpster just a few feet from a line of young, rope-supported trees in the backyard.

When Liz Fisher walked through the wet, muddy and ash-caked house she found little worth cleaning to keep. While a battery-driven clock continued to run in the living room, she decided to discard leather furniture, a TV and a camouflage jacket hanging in a closet beneath rows of VHS tapes.

She said the weight of the loss had not hit her by late afternoon. The same was not true for her husband.

“Randy built this house with his own hands,” Liz Fisher said.

The family plans to stay in a hotel before finding a rental home.

The family’s cat, Stevie, was believed to have died in the fire but emerged from the basement around 10 a.m. The cat, previously nursed to health by Liz Fisher, then nursed again after being hit by a car, re-entered the basement briefly before running into the tree line stretching along the Fisher’s property.

“His tail,” said Liz Fisher, laughing again, “was a little crispy.”