Door County 911 dispatcher takes call for fire that destroyed her Forestville home

FORESTVILLE - A Door County 911 dispatcher took a devastating call the morning of June 9 − from her son, reporting that the family's house was on fire.

While the son escaped the house, as well as a daughter and her friend who were sleeping in a camper next to the house, eight pets died in the fire and the family lost nearly everything that was inside.

The call came in to 911 at 8 a.m. for a fire at 227 Lucerne Drive in Forestville from Marisa Anderson's 12-year-old son, Landon, who was sleeping when he awoke to the sound of glass breaking and smelled smoke. Anderson, who's been a 911 dispatcher for the county for more than two years, took the call.

"I had no idea (it was my son) at first," Anderson said. "I answered the call like I'd normally answer a call."

Anderson said with the procedure of getting information from the call, it took a couple of minutes for her to realize it was for her own house.

"I heard kids yelling for their mom. … I didn't realize they were yelling for me," she said. "I got the coordinates (for the address) and remember seeing 227 (the house number), but it didn't click."

When she did come to understand what was happening, her partner went to their supervisor, who sent Anderson home. It was on her drive home when the impact of the situation struck her.

"It hadn't clicked, but I knew something was going on," Anderson said. "I didn't officially lose it until I was halfway home and saw the black smoke in the sky.

"I was speeding to get home. When I got there, I just went running and asked for my children."

Landon and his 17-year-old sister, Emma, both were safe, standing outside with a neighbor. Anderson's husband, Jim, was at his job at Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding when Marisa called him as she raced home.

But there also were three dogs, four cats and a rabbit in the home. None survived.

"My second question (after asking for her children) was, where are my pets?" Anderson said. "My pets were my babies. They each had their own personality. Outside of my kids, they were my world. (The firefighters) told me they were bringing out the (6-and-a-half-month-old) puppy out first. They carried him out, and he was limp. I just collapsed."

Anderson said Landon regretted not trying to gather up pets on his way out of the house, or going back in after making the 911 call. But Southern Door Fire Chief Rich Olson said Landon did everything right in his actions when he realized the house was on fire.

"He did all the right steps in sequence, to get himself out and get his sister out, then call 911 after he was out, and not go back inside," Olson said.

There were no injuries to humans as a direct result of the fire, but Landon rebroke a foot he broke in February when he jumped over a fire hose and landed on the foot.

Investigators found the fire was caused by an extension cord in the basement of the structure, Olson said. The blaze spread from the basement upstairs into the kitchen area. Interior crews put out the fire in the basement and the roof was ventilated to allow heat and smoke to escape, which aided firefighting operations.

It took a little more than two hours to extinguish the fire, with the scene cleared at 10:30 a.m. Also responding to the call to assist were crews from the Brussels-Union-Gardner (BUG), Sturgeon Bay, Algoma and Luxemburg fire departments.

The structure is still standing, but Olson said it's uninhabitable, having suffered extensive smoke damage throughout the entire structure and considerable fire damage.

And, the family lost everything, save for the clothes they were wearing and handful of possessions they had with them at the time.

"Pretty much everything is ruined or so badly smoke-damaged that it's not worth salvaging," Anderson said. "We're not material people, but we worked hard for what we've got and what the kids have."

They're living at The Lodge at Leathem Smith in Sturgeon Bay as of Tuesday while the family's insurance company tries to find them temporary housing, preferably with a kitchen.

"There has been a lot of carryout the past few days," Anderson said. "A friend brought us a home-cooked meal the other day, and the kids were thrilled."

A collection has been started for clothes at the Southern Door School District office in Brussels (size 6 women's/junior clothes and 7/medium junior tops for Emma; men's small pants, shorts and jogging pants and medium shirts for Landon; size 20 tall jeans and 2X tops for Marisa; XL shirts and 36x32 jeans for Jim).

Funds are being raised to help, too. The Door County Fire Chiefs Association contributed $2,000 to the family to help them start to rebuild, and Anderson started a GoFundMe page to ask for help that as of Tuesday afternoon had received more than $11,000 of its $20,000 goal (visit gofundme.com and search for "House fire" under the name Marisa McLean). She also opened an account in her name at Nicolet Bank to which people can contribute.

"We're not the type of people to ask for help," Anderson said, "so this has been really difficult for me to ask for it."

"While the structure of the house is still standing, everything inside has been destroyed," the GoFundMe page says. "We literally have to start over from scratch. ... If you can't donate, please say a prayer for my family."

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@doorcountyadvocate.com.

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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Door County 911 dispatcher takes call for fire at her Forestville home