'I am forever grateful': Foghts blessed by a neighbor's heroism and a community's support

Doug Foght remembers every detail of June 3.

He remembers showing a contractor around the outside of the house. He remembers opening the side gate. He remembers going back to work. And he remembers the phone call from a neighbor a short time later, telling him his house was on fire.

But mostly, he remembers the community support that helped him and his wife, Ida, deal with the tragedy of that day.

"I don't really know how to put into words how blessed we are to have the neighbors we do," he said. "Our neighborhood is almost like a family unit, in a sense. We all watch out for each other."

The Foghts were lucky: Their home was saved — they were able to sleep there that night.

"We are very blessed," said Ida, 45.

But there are worse things than house fires.

During the fire, neighbor Kaye Pifer tried to rescue the Foghts' four American bulldogs, who were trapped inside the burning house. One of the dogs, confused by the fire and finding a stranger in the house, attacked her.

"I am forever grateful for her," Doug, 37, said. "There's never going to be a way that I'm ever able to repay her. I could spend the rest of my life doing nice things for her and it's still never going to be enough."

Pifer, who had severe injuries to both arms and both legs, was honored for her courage during the Bucyrus Area Chamber of Commerce's annual dinner earlier this month. On the same night, Doug, who served several years on Bucyrus City Council as the Third Ward representative, was recognized as volunteer of the year.

Side gate was opened for contractor

On that June day, the Foghts were getting ready for a home improvement project. They planned to install a new roof, siding, furnace and air conditioner, plus some new windows.

The Foghts have lived in the home for 14 years. Their two daughters are grown, and they have four grandchildren, with another on the way. The house on West Oakwood Avenue is bigger than they need now, but they don't want to leave the neighborhood.

"I got home about noon," Doug said. The contractor arrived around 12:30 p.m., and they discussed estimates, then walked around the house. "Well, because I knew were were walking around my house, that's why my side gate was open, to get into my backyard."

They went back to the front porch, where Doug signed the contract and wrote a check for the down payment. The contractor left shortly before 1:30 p.m.

"Then I came back in the house, made sure the dogs were all where they were supposed to be, went back out and went over to my office," he said. Doug is an agent at Watts House of Insurance, 508 S. Sandusky Ave., less than a half-mile away.

'Oh my god, your porch is on fire!'

At almost exactly 2:30 p.m., his next-door neighbor called, and he knew something had to be wrong.

"She's panicking on the phone, freaking out, and I'm like, 'What's wrong, what's wrong?' She's like, 'Oh my god, your porch is on fire!'" he said. "So I immediately jump out of my chair, don't do much other than run out of my office, hopped in my truck and I disregarded probably every traffic law there was on my way to my house."

As Doug neared his home, traffic slowed.

"There was a car creeping in front of my house as my house is burning, they're driving slow so they can look at it," he said. As Doug finally was able to pull into his driveway, he remembers seeing someone lying in the grass. But his focus was on getting the dogs out. He decided he could still reach the front door.

"I saw my window of opportunity, so I ran up on my front porch and was going to come in my front door," Doug said. "I do not know why."

He didn't think to kick the door in; instead, he entered the passcode for the lock — and fumbled it. While he was waiting for the lock to reset, the fire flashed, burning the left side of his body.

"The only reason that I actually ran off the porch was because I could hear my hair burning," Doug said. "And I knew if my hair was burning, that's bad."

A neighbor had been trying to get the dogs out through the bay window in the dining room, which was open a crack. Foght went in through the window.

One dog was sitting nearby, too scared to move. Their oldest dog, 11-year-old Zeus, is deaf and blind. He was asleep on a loveseat, oblivious to the situation. Doug got those two out the back door.

Panda — a 160-pound male — was "so in shock and everything," that when he initially saw Doug, he started to come after his owner.

"So I got him calmed down; I got them all out of the house, into the garage area ... I knew the firemen were going to be coming through and they didn't need to be worrying about dogs," Doug said.

Neighbor spotted fire, then tried to rescue dogs

What Doug didn't know at that point is that someone else already had tried to rescue the dogs.

Pifer, owner of Kaye & Co. Salon, 125 E. Rensselaer St., was the first to spot the fire.

"I was out mowing my yard and noticed the porch of Doug's house was on fire. I ran into my house to get my phone and my daughter gave me hers, which I could not unlock," she recalled, laughing. "So I handed it back to her and said, 'Call 9-1-1; I'm going to try to get the dogs out.' Because I knew that Doug had dogs. And I couldn't stand there and just watch the house burn with his dogs inside."

Since the fire was in the front, she went to the back door and found it open.

Because the fenced back yard and garage are normally locked, preventing anyone from getting to the back door, the Foghts had gotten into the habit of leaving it unlocked, Doug explained. So with the side gate open, Pifer was able to get into the house. He's still angry at himself for leaving that gate open.

"I wasn't sure if there were people home," Pifer said. "So I yelled to make sure no one was home. And then no one answered, so I yelled for the dogs to come out, and when the dogs came out, one of them was obviously terrified. And doing what dogs do, protecting his house, proceeded to bite me."

"It was bad," Doug said. "Kaye is the strongest woman I probably ever met in my life and I sincerely mean that in every aspect of the word. I can't tell you how strong she has to be."

He said believes Kaye first encountered Paxton, a very friendly female dog.

"But then as she would have made noise, Panda is the defender of the house, and he always has been," Doug said. "As soon as he heard her, he went after her because she was a stranger coming into the house, and at that point in time, there was already some smoke in the house and things going on."

Another neighbor was approaching the house, saw what was happening and yelled. Panda retreated, giving Pifer an opportunity to get away.

Foght arrived home about a minute later.

'The only thing in this world that matters is that your wife is going to be OK'

Kevin Myers, a longtime at-large member of city council, lives just a few doors down from the Foghts. In addition to being neighbors and having served on council together, the two men share a career — Myers is an insurance agent with the Andrew Schoch Agency.

At the fire scene, Myers was at Doug's side.

"Kevin was like my ground in a sense at that time, because I was nowhere to be found at that point. I was here, but I was not here," Doug said. "And Kevin was my ground, trying to get me to focus on things that I needed to, and do the things that I needed to."

It fell to Myers to tell Doug the bad news about Pifer.

"I knew that the ambulance had taken her to the hospital; I had no idea of anything as far as what had happened to her. ... I just knew that she was injured," Doug said. "The next thing I know, I looked up and I saw a Life Flight leaving from Bucyrus. And I just looked at Kevin and I said, 'Kevin, tell me that's not Kaye.' And he goes, "OK, I won't tell you that was Kaye.'"

Doug said he sat down on a curb across the street and started crying.

"I was just bawling, because I felt so horrible," he said. "I didn't even care about my situation. ... I could care less about this house; it's wood, it's plastic. We'll fix this. I can't replace Kaye. I can't replace that woman and at this point of time in her life, these are some of the most memorable years of her life, because her kids are in high school, doing all these different things."

Foght said he looked up and found Kaye's husband, Scott, standing beside him.

"Scott looks down at me and I look up at Scott and I just said, 'Please tell me your wife's going to be OK." And he just kind of started tearing up a little bit and he goes, 'They're going to get her taken care of.' He goes, 'Are you OK?Is there anything you need?' And I'm like, 'Scott, I don't matter right now. Nothing of this matters right now. The only thing in this world that matters is that your wife is going to be OK.'"

At Bucyrus Pack and Ship, Ida waited for updates

The Foghts co-own Bucyrus Pack and Ship, 556 S. Sandusky Ave., with Duane Watts, Doug's boss at the insurance agency. Ida was working there, alone, when the fire started. She couldn't leave.

"He called me, and I said, 'Well you better take me a picture or something.' And he wouldn't," she said of her husband.

Eventually, Watts came to the store.

"Duane got out of his car and he said, 'Well, it's not you,'" she said. "And I go, what are you talking about?"

Many people, seeing the ambulance leave the home, thought Ida was the woman who had been injured.

Watts stayed to close up the store so Ida could go see the damage to her home.

A neighbor saw her walk onto the porch and, looking forlorn, pick up the remains of a dog statue with a solar-powered light. It had been a favorite gift from Doug, and it was ruined.

Two weeks later, that neighbor gave Ida a new statue to take its place.

That's just one of the many ways the community rallied around the Foghts and Pifers in the wake of the fire.

In wake of fire, community shows support

It took firefighters from the Bucyrus Fire Department 10 to 15 minutes to put the fire out, Doug said.

The firefighters told him the home, which was built in 1925, still has asbestos fiber siding hidden under the more contemporary vinyl, and that prevented the fire from spreading — and probably saved the home from being a total loss.

They don't know how the fire started, Doug said. "There's lots of possibilities ... They did not find a definitive ignition source," he said.

The front rooms of the house were covered with broken glass. Curtains had melted to the wall. The entire house had smoke damage.

Two items that were hanging at the front of the house inexplicably escaped damage: A framed portrait of Foght's grandfather, Boyd Long, and a plaque honoring Long's military service.

The bulldogs — Zeus, Payton, Paxton and Panda — were not injured, but the latter three have been more nervous than usual since the fire.

"We did decide to stay in our home; we could have taken money and moved somewhere else, but because of everything that the dogs had already been through, all the stress that they had been through, we didn't want to try to rehome them," Doug said.

"I'm not going to leave my house," Ida said. "This is my home. I'm not going to leave it."

Almost six months later, repairs to home are almost complete

The family room addition at the back of the house had only a little smoke damage, so they stayed there at first. The kitchen was still functional, though the appliances eventually had to be replaced.

The initial cleanup took about a week. Getting everything rebuilt and repaired took about five months, though a few final touches are still in the works. A new front door is coming soon, and the replacement flooring for the back half of the house is ready for installation.

Bad news always travels faster than good news, Doug said; and because Bucyrus is a small community, people tend to hear a lot of negative news.

"I'm sorry; this is one of the best communities you could live in," he said. "We have so many wonderful people in this community; so many people that care about others."

Within the first two hours after the fire, he received countless offers of places to stay, food and other assistance.

"So many people offered us a place to stay that I didn't even need insurance," he said.

As soon as the fire was out, Watts went back to the office to file a claim immediately. A representative from Shambaugh Cleaning and Restoration was there and followed Watts back to the house to offer to help.

"So many little things," Doug said. "So many people offering support, offering help."

'I told her she was our hero'

The Pifers kept the Foghts updated throughout Kaye's recovery. She said she spent a week at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.

The first night she was home, they were able to visit.

"Kaye felt bad for what happened; when Ida and I looked at her and told her how sorry we were for what happened, how we'll never be able to repay her for what she had done. To which Kaye replied, 'But I didn't do anything; I didn't even save your dogs.' And it's like, just your reaction and what you did saved our home," Doug said. "You, because you did what you did, alerted everybody else, which is why my dogs were able to be saved. Why my home was able to be saved. Why I still have a place to live.

"There's no way that Ida and I are ever going to be able to repay Kaye for what she did."

"I told her she was our hero," Ida said.

Pifer told them she had a feeling something would happen if she went into the house, because she had never met the dogs before, Doug said. But she went in anyway.

"I love animals," Pifer said simply. "I just couldn't stand there and watch his dogs die."

The families, who both attend Good Hope Lutheran Church, remain good friends. Doug said he's very aware that might not always be the case in such situations.

Nine weeks after the fire, Pifer was able to return to work at her salon.

"I'm OK," she said. "I'm grateful that I was the only one who was hurt that day. Doug and Ida's house is still there and they still have all their dogs, and no one else in the neighborhood was hurt, so it's good."

Pifer was a nominee for the Bucyrus Area Chamber of Commerce's citizen of the year award. She wasn't told in advance about the special award honoring her heroism, which Doug presented.

"I was not expecting that in the least," she said. "I was very overwhelmed with that. ...

"I'm very honored to even be recognized for it. I didn't think what I was doing that day was anything that anybody else wouldn't have done. They recognized me for heroism, but the real heroes that day were the fire department and the EMS and my kids and the other bystanders on the street that helped me."

The Foghts see things differently.

"She is an amazing, wonderful woman, and she will always be my hero," Ida said.

"People like her speak to what our community is made of," Doug said. "There are so many people like that in our community. We don't all get the opportunity to shine like Kaye did, in a sense. I wish she wouldn't have had that opportunity. But I'm forever grateful to her."

ggoble@gannett.com

419-559-7263

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Foghts grateful for a neighbor's heroism and community's support