Mom, daughter saved from fire

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, May 26, 2007

Just after 2 a.m., flames were ripping across the top of the house, which was filling with smoke. Inside, Kim Gieratz and her 13-year-old daughter, Kailee, were sound asleep in separate bedrooms.

If Bill Young hadn’t been standing outside hammering his fists on the door and shouting, “Fire! Fire!” there is no doubt Kim and Kailee’s family would be making funeral arrangements this week instead of celebrating the fact they survived the devastating fire that destroyed their home and all their belongings.

Kim and Kailee were still shaken Wednesday afternoon when they visited the house that had burned early that morning. Kim shook her head in disbelief at what had happened.

“Mr. Young at the end of the street saw the flames,” she said, hugging her daughter. “He beat on the door, screamed fire! fire! He saved our lives. I don’t know how we’ll ever repay him.”

Maybe with a free haircut? Kim Geiratz, a single mom, has been a barber at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station for the last 10 years, and Bill Young has been one of her faithful customers. But the last thing he was thinking about that terrifying night was a haircut.

Kailee also was awakened by Young’s shouting, but didn’t notice anything else unusual. “It was fine in my room,” she said. The bedrooms are in the back of the house, while the flames were consuming the cedar shake roof. “I swung the door open and in the hallway I couldn’t see.”

Her mother was already in the hallway, desperately heading for Kailee’s room, and together they found their way through the smoke to the back door where Young was waiting to lead them to safety.

Kailee’s eyes filled with tears and she cried when asked if they had any pets. Biscuit, her pet cat, didn’t make it out.

Outside, Bill Young was desperately waiting to see if anyone would answer his yelling and hammering. “I was banging on the door and Kim and Kailee came out,” he said, still sounding relieved on Thursday. “They were shook, really shook.” He was thrilled because he was about to ignore the orders of the 911 dispatcher and head into the burning house to find Kim and Kailee. “You gotta do what you gotta do,” said the 60-year-old retired Navy skipper of VAQ 131.

Minutes later crews and equipment from North Whidbey Fire and Rescue and the Navy fire department started arriving. The house on Hazelwood Drive above Dugualla Bay was engulfed in flames, said Chief Marv Koorn.

“Big house, big fire,” he explained.

Five fire engines, three tenders, a rescue truck with a light tower, a command rig and around 30 firefighters crammed into the tidy neighborhood and battled the flames. The house was obviously doomed and the people had already been saved, so attention turned to the neighbor’s house.

Suzi Souza was standing outside, wondering if her house would survive. Flames shooting through the darkness blistered the paint and melted some asphalt shingles, but that was the extent of the damage. She too was awakened by Bill Young, but she only found out later who it was. “Someone was pounding on my door shouting fire! fire!, get out!” she said. “I’m not sure who it was.”

When she got outside she saw her neighbor’s house in flames. “They were huge,” Souza said. “Very frightening. But the firefighters were great, they saved my house, they hosed it down.”

Chief Koorn was among the first firefighters on the scene. He saw a house quickly being consumed by flames, which had started in the garage end of the rambler. Exactly what caused the fire wasn’t immediately known. Koorn had no doubt that Bill Young prevented two deaths. “They would not have survived,” he flatly stated. “He did exactly what he should do.”

It was a poorly played baseball game that resulted in Bill Young still being awake at 2 a.m. Wednesday. Usually he retires no later than 1 a.m., but the Babe Ruth league team he coaches hadn’t played well Tuesday, and that bothered him. “I was stressed, so I stayed up,” he said.

Before retiring, he glanced out the window and saw an orange glow. “I noticed some flames, and thought ‘what on earth, is my neighbor having a bonfire at this hour?’” he recalled thinking. “I looked closer, something wasn’t right.” He called 911 to report the fire and dashed out the door, running down Hazelwood Drive.

The huge flames made the fire look closer than it was. “I was almost half a mile down the street as it turned out,” Young said. “I started screaming fire! fire! fire! to get the word out.” When he reached the door of the house it was pitch black and smoky and he had trouble finding the door; he had to feel around for it. “I’m in my slippers, my feet are chewed up, my right hand is swollen around my ring finger from banging on the door, banging so hard. It seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only a matter of seconds,” he said.

When the door finally opened the first thing Young saw was “a big billow of smoke.” Right behind it came Kim and Kailee, and it was a sight he’ll never forget. “I know Kim and Kailee,” he said. “She’s cuts my hair. She’s my barber.”

Young thinks everything happens for a reason, even losing Babe Ruth baseball games. Had his team won, he would have been in bed like everyone else in the neighborhood.

“It puts everything in perspective,” he said.