By Mark Havnes
The Salt Lake Tribune
Copyright 2007 The Salt Lake Tribune
All Rights Reserved
PAROWAN, Utah — Iron County emergency medical technician Polly Johnson was doing paperwork Wednesday morning at the ambulance building in Parowan when she was dispatched to a house fire.
When she arrived, her heart sank. It was her home burning.
“I thought it might be mine,” she said as volunteer firefighters from Parowan and Brian Head mopped up at the scene. “Our address is 190 West 400 North, so when we were sent to 200 West 400 North, I know there wasn’t a house there.”
Johnson, called her husband, Stan, who also was at work, and delivered the bad news.
No one was home at the time of the blaze, which was reported at 7:30 a.m. and quickly doused.
Polly Johnson suspects the fire started in a lower level of her split-level home in a wood pile that rests against the house and was used to fuel a wood stove.
“My husband got up and made a fire about 5 a.m.,” said Johnson, who was comforted by friends and neighbors.
Parowan Fire Chief Albert Orton said the exact cause was unknown, but he expected it started in the wood pile or from an electrical problem.
“We still have to determine the cause,” Orton said.
Johnson, who did not have a damage estimate, was philosophical about responding to a blaze at her own home.
“It could have been worse,” she said. “It could have been showing up at a [traffic] wreck involving your own children.”