New's article of my fire...

By DEREK J. MOORE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A Saturday evening blaze that destroyed a Fulton Road house brought out sweat-stained firefighters and well-dressed members of a wedding party who were attending a ceremony in a Pentecostal church across the street.

By the time Rose Diamond returned to her home at 2435 Fulton Road, the street was a chaotic scene of firetrucks, swollen water hoses and one woman wearing a white dress.

Diamond said she was at a hardware store when a neighbor called her on her cell phone to report that the Egg Basket Food Market on River Road was on fire.

Diamond said she rushed back, only to find her house, which is a few doors down from the market, ablaze. Firefighters got the call at 5:04 p.m. and were already at the house when Diamond got there.

She watched helplessly as flames shot through the roof of her home.

"There goes my past," said the retired fleet service clerk for American Airlines. "My whole life is in there. My photographs and my cats."

Three kittens she was cat-sitting and two of her own felines - Pinkie Boy and Stormy - survived the blaze.

Firefighters used oxygen masks on the kittens, which were placed in a 45-gallon storage container next to a fire engine.

One kitten and two of Diamond's cats perished, however. A third was still missing late Saturday.

Animal control officers took the surviving cats to an animal shelter.

The fire broke out as Christopher Wanliss, 28, and Ericka Thompson, 19, were being married in Fulton Community Church of God in Christ across the street.

Pastor James Marchbanks said the couple had just gotten to the altar when sirens sounded. The ceremony went on, however, and by the time the wedding party filed out of the church, seven fire engines and a ladder truck were occupying the road.

Marchbanks embraced Diamond and said she could stay at his home for the next few days. She is a member of his congregation.

"I'm just hurt for Rose," Marchbanks said. "Her heart goes out to everyone. She rushed back here to put out a fire she thought wasn't hers."

Wanliss, who wore a black suit and gold tie for the ceremony, found something positive in the sight of firefighters working hard to save the home.

"It's a sign of good luck to me and my wife," he said. "We got to witness all the teamwork. With teamwork, you can get it done."

Diamond said the three-bedroom, one-bath house she has called home for about five years is about 100 years old. She was at a loss to explain how the blaze started.

Arson investigators were called out as a precaution, said Joe Giordani, a battalion chief with the Windsor Fire Department.

"I just can't believe it," Diamond said, as members of the wedding party drove off for the reception."

- THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

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