Family loses home in fire a day after Christmas

 Loachapoka, Al.

Norman Pitts and his wife Jacqueline are sifting through what’s left of their Christmas memories after a fire ripped through their Loachapoka home early Monday morning.

Although their Lee Road 817 home may look like rubble now, the few family pictures they have been able to pluck from the charred remains are priceless to them.

After arriving home around 10:30 p.m. Sunday night, Pitts had a meal and sat down to watch TV in the living room before falling asleep. Approximately three hours later, he awoke to the sight of fire in the kitchen.

“Something just woke me up,” said Pitts, 40, who described himself as a heavy sleeper. “I just jumped up and looked to the right and saw the whole wall above the stove on fire.”

Pitts’ wife and two children, Normesha, 13, and son, Jaquavious, 15, were asleep in other rooms.

Pitts made his way down the hallway, waking his family and getting them safely outside. Then he tried to fight the fire, first with a fire extinguisher and then a hose, but the fire was out of control.

“I’d gotten my family out of the house safe and was trying to save what I could of our house,” Pitts said. “We’d always wanted a home and that was our first.

“The only thing we made it out with were the pajamas we were wearing and our socks. Everything else burned up.”

Everything included the home’s furnishings, cash and all of the family’s Christmas gifts.

The Notasulga and Southwest Lee County Volunteer Fire departments arrived and extinguished the fire, which Pitts said may have been electrical in origin.

Pitts, a 17-year employee with the City of Auburn’s Environmental Services Department, and his wife are currently staying in an Auburn hotel, while their children are living with relatives in Valley.

Insurance will not cover the full cost of rebuilding, said Pitts, who hopes to rebuild on the same site in six months to a year.

Still he said what he is most grateful for is the fact that he and his family escaped unharmed.

“It may take many, many years but all those material things can be replaced in due time,” said Pitts, who had called the Loachapoka residence home for the past seven years. “It is only by the grace of God that we are alive.”

Since the fire, Pitts says a host of friends, family and members of his church have rallied to help.

“I had a lot of friends but didn’t know so many of them loved me like that,” Pitts said.

Anyone wishing to make a donation to assist the Pitts family may do so at any AuburnBank branch to an account set up in the name of Norman Pitts.