Brandon Twp.- Sue Crowton’s hero lives across the street from her.
Crowton came home from a Little League baseball game about 1:30 p.m., June 23, with her son and his friend to get some ice water for the team when she saw smoke coming from her backyard and discovered a fire on her wood deck in the 4800 block of Stanton Road.
She called 911 on her cell phone and was screaming, ‘Fire!? when her neighbor, Ron Brissette, heard her. Brissette, who had been doing landscaping in his own yard, came on the run.
Upon reaching the backyard, Brissette’s first thought was to move a gas barbecue grill so the propane wouldn’t blow up. He burned the back of his hand slightly on the grill while testing it, then used his shirt to move it before finding a melting hose on the deck and turning it on to fight the blaze.
‘That’s what neighbors do,? said Brissette, 59. ‘My wife said I’m crazy, I know I’m crazy. But I hope people would help me, or my wife if she came home to a problem like that. Everything was in the right place at the right time. What else can you do at a time like that? I don’t want to see anybody lose their house.?
The Brandon Fire Department arrived minutes later to find the fire nearly completely extinguished by the man’s quick actions.
‘He is absolutely the reason there was less damage done to the outside, and there was no fire, smoke or water damage to the interior of the home,? said Fire Chief Bob McArthur, who added that the home sustained about $10,000 in damage to the vinyl siding and deck.
‘The firefighters said within 15 minutes my house would have been gone,? said Crowton, whose home is a 1,200 square-foot ranch.
She is thankful to the firefighters, and to her neighbor, whom she has always waved and said hello to, but didn’t know well.
‘I’m so happy he was there,? she said. ‘He’s our hero. We are so lucky to have clothes to wear and a bed to sleep in… We realize what we could have lost and we are fine.?
The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Oakland County Fire and Arson Division and the Brandon Fire Department. McArthur said investigators have been unable to locate any accidental causes.