Firefighters raising money for colleague who lost his home in blaze he helped battle
A Maryland firefighter hopped into a truck last week, heading to an early-morning blaze that he thought was a few doors down from his own house.
Michael Heim, 48, hooked up a fire hose to a nearby hydrant and started battling the blaze with his colleagues early Friday morning, 30 minutes before the end of his shift, when he realized that he was at his own home.
Norman Rea, a spokesman for the Solomons Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department, said the fire was so hot and intense that they immediately went into “defensive operations.”
“He’s such a dedicated person. He’s got a heart of gold,” Rea said in an interview with Yahoo News. “He fought as hard and long as he could until he couldn’t bear it.”
The fire started in the Calvert County home’s basement and worked its way up, incinerating everything but a few possessions, including a coffee can, an old photo album, a fire nozzle and a copy of the Book of Mormon.
"When they found the Bible, and it wasn't even burnt, I thought, 'Somebody's looking out for me,'" Heim told Today.com.
It took the firefighters a half-hour to get the fire under control and several more hours to extinguish it completely.
Heim’s friends and colleagues came together to start raising money to get Heim back on his feet.
“This is a guy that’s helped so many people in this world. Now it’s our turn to rescue him,” Rea said. “He’s still going through it pretty intense right now.”
Heim, who has been a member of the department for 15 years, is staying at the firehouse while he figures out his next step.
So far, Heim has been overwhelmed by kind messages from people he has helped over the years.
"It's amazing, reading the responses of all these people," Heim said. "It's really hard to believe how many people remember you, because I've helped a lot of people in 15 years."
The estimated loss is $190,000, but the fundraising campaign currently aims to raise $50,000, according to Rea. So far, it has raised more than $14,000.
“We are trying to make a goal that the public can realistically make happen,” he said.
You can contribute by visiting the GoFundMe or PayPal pages.
