Fire moves into houses abandoned by foreclosures

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090620/D98UL41O0.html

Jun 20, 5:18 PM (ET)

By ADAM GELLER

FLINT, Mich. (AP) - Like the house across the street gone missing and the one at the corner stripped of its front door, the weathered brown bungalow at 1430 Jane Ave. bided its time, edging nearer to a meeting with a wrecking crew.

But in a city with more than 1,000 abandoned homes slated for demolition, it would have to wait its turn. Until, at 8:15 a.m. Oct. 8, the little house jumped the line.

When firefighters arrived seven minutes later, the front of 1430 Jane was already swollen with flames - the latest in a long, sad string of fires destroying scores of homes this half-empty city no longer has any use for.

Except this one was different.

Like the others, the owner had thrown in the towel. It was in tax foreclosure and ready to be forgotten.

But it wasn't empty.

"Gordy!" neighbors yelled in to the flames. "Get out of there if you're in there!"

Flint's abandoned homes usually announce themselves by the boards covering their windows, walls ripped open and scavenged for pipes and aluminum siding. But at 1430, a pair of chairs hung from the porch. Blinds flapped from bedroom windows.

And as firefighters battled in, a terrible paradox was revealed. In a city and a nation awash in empty structures, one man's abandoned home can be another's man refuge - and sometimes his final resting place.

FULL story at link.

[chill_wind]

1. Alcohol, candles, lawnmover tinkering in the living room--

there are so many tragic elements in this story.