Firefighters inspect the home of Carl and Virginia Webb Monday night after extinguishing a chimney fire at their Clarkesville home. (PHOTO/Daniel Purcell)
It’s the kind of visit you don’t expect to get from strangers but it’s one Virginia Webb of Clarkesville says she’s grateful she got. Webb and her husband Carl were eating dinner at their home on Gastley Road Monday night when their doorbell rang. She says, “Two good Samaritans came to our door and told us that our house was on fire.”
When the Webbs got outside they saw flames shooting out of their chimney and called 9-1-1.
Within minutes firefighters from Clarkesville and Habersham County arrived on the scene and the good Samaritans, well, they were gone. “I have no idea who this couple was,” Webb says.
Firefighters extinguished the flames before they could spread and Webb says there was no damage to the house. Still, she says, “It was scary. You know, fire is one of the things people fear the most because you can lose so much, not only your life but all of your possessions and everything, too.”
Webb credits the unknown couple and firefighters’ quick response with saving her family’s home and quickly acknowledges, “It could have been a lot worse.”
In addition to sharing her gratitude with the firefighters and good Samaritans — whoever and wherever they are — Webb shares some sound advice given to her by one of the firefighters who showed up on her front lawn Monday. “It’s a good reminder, as the fireman said, that you need to have your chimney swept once a year and inspected.”
Webb encourages people to heed that advice and stresses that she certainly will. “We won’t have another fire for quite a while until we get a local chimney sweep.”
