LARGO, Fla. — The Thanksgiving holiday has Tampa Bay firefighters on high alert. Thanksgiving is one of the busiest days of the year.
They’re constantly running on calls, in particular for cooking fires. One common appliance cost a Largo family their home this Thanksgiving.
Chip and Debbie Bombard, who live off of Meares Drive in Largo, believe an ember from their smoker ignited their home of 23 years.
Luckily, the couple weren’t home and their 12-year-old daughter was able to dash outside just in time.
The Bombard family thinks a single ember from their smoker, where they were cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, may have fallen onto the back deck.
It’s calls like that keeping Largo firefighters busy.
“We can go from a quiet morning to a triple call all at once. It can be a cardiac arrest, it can be delivering a baby,” explained Lt. Warren Cargill of the Largo Fire Department.
With thousands of people cooking, grilling and frying on Thanksgiving, the firefighters know all it takes is a single spark.
It was a single spark, that’s now forcing the Bombard family to rebuild.
“It’s just so sad when things like this happen but more so when it happens on a holiday,” their neighbor Debbie Burns said with a sigh.
