Ten minutes. That’s how much time David Linck figures stood between him and certain death. The Habersham County resident was burned out of his home early Saturday, Nov. 25.
“It was 2:30 in the morning, I was sleeping. I woke up to a funny sound,” he says.
Linck got up to check the wood stove in his house on Cowart Road near Batesville. He said the fire in the stove had gone out, but the wall was on fire.
“I was kind of unnerved, so I went and started grabbing everything” to escape, including his 14-year-old cat Tigger.
“He was sleeping on the bed with me, so I grabbed him, and we both went out the window,” Linck says.
By the time Linck called 911, the house was engulfed in flames.
Units from the Amy’s Creek and Habersham Mills Road fire stations responded to the call for help. White County provided mutual aid. Because of the rural location, there were no fire hydrants nearby. Firefighters had to shuttle in water using pump trucks.
Linck has nothing but praise for the firefighters. He says they arrived quickly and worked hard, but he adds, “By the time they got their pump truck here, it [the house] was a loss.”
‘Deeply grateful’
He describes the fire that destroyed his home as “quick moving.”
It was very fast and very scary,” he says.
Linck suspects an electrical short caused the fire. He was having trouble with an outside outlet the day before. He later determined the funny noise that awoke him was coming from the fuse box.
“The fuse box is right under where I sleep at, so that noise – I was hearing the fuse box buzzing is what it was.”
Although he was in the process of renovating the house, Linck says it didn’t involve any electrical work. He had just recently finished painting and redoing the floors. He hung up the curtains and pictures and, last week, moved in his new furniture. Now, it’s all gone. Still, he remains “deeply grateful.”
“I’m glad to be here because it could have been the other way. Ten more minutes and I wouldn’t be talking to you.”
Fire investigators from the state and Habersham County were scheduled to visit the site Monday to isolate the cause of the fire.
