Lets at least try and not make us look bad

Guess we need to train some more on overhaul, even in vacant dwellings?

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Family members find Dallas man dead 5 days after fire near Fair Park
Dallas, Texas...By Blanca Cantu'...The Dallas Morning NewsA Dallas man was found dead by family members Wednesday morning in a charred vacant home that had been destroyed in a fire five days earlier.

The sister and nephew of Earnest Sirls, 46, found his body under a pile of debris, Sirls’ mother, Rose Davis Braggs, said.

The home, in the 2700 block of Cross Street near Fair Park, had burned in a one-alarm blaze at 1:30 a.m. Friday. Firefighters didn’t enter the vacant home before putting out the blaze and didn’t see his body during two sweeps of the house after the fire was extinguished, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Ernest Gurule said. “It was not treated as a rescue,” Gurule said. “What happened here is going to be thoroughly reviewed. We are going to make sure that everyone understands their role to minimize another occurrence. We express our deepest condolences to the family.”Sirls’ cause of death and the fire remain under investigation. Braggs filed a missing persons report with Dallas police when she didn’t hear from Sirls over the weekend. She said she went to the vacant home where he was known to go and asked people in the area if they had seen him. Braggs said her son had been released from a rehabilitation program for alcohol abuse a few months ago and had been staying at shelters temporarily. But he was in the process of changing his life, she said.“He was doing good,” she said. “He was going to church.” Now, Braggs is worrying about how she’ll pay for her son’s funeral.“I’m just hurt,” she said. “The fire department should have gone in there and looked.”