Local News
Residents praise action of deputy at house fire
By Daniel Walker
Herald-Banner staff
A deputy with the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office is being praised by his department and by residents of a neighborhood near Royse City for his actions earlier this month that helped save a home from being completely destroyed by fire. Neighbor Sandra Kimber told the Herald-Banner and the HCSO that Agee “went above and beyond his duty” in battling the blaze.
Deputy Jason Agee was the first responder to arrive at a house fire in the 4000 block of Marian Lane late Friday night, December 11.
“When I got there, I saw the lady standing on the porch with her neighbors and smoke coming from the home,” Agee said, adding that the fire had apparently started with grease on the kitchen stove. “She looked like she wanted to go back in, she seemed in a state of shock.”
Agee said the smoke was too thick through the front door to see anything but he and a neighbor were able to see through a side door that the fire was climbing up a wall. “I knew that if it got into the attic that there would be no saving the home,” Agee said. “Since Sheriff Randy Meeks came into office, he equipped our patrol cars with the things we need to do our jobs and one of those things is a fire extinguisher. I ran to the car got the fire extinguisher and told the man, ‘Let’s try this’. I took a big puff of air, ran in and tried to keep it contained.”
Agee ran back out for air. Then plunged back into the house a second, then a third and then a fourth time according to witnesses. “Honestly I can’t remember if it was three or four times but I finally ran out of extinguisher,” he said. “One of the firemen told me with us getting in there, we contained it to not destroy the front of the house and saved their memorabilia and possessions.”
Agee’s actions earned praise from his department. “He’s a good solid officer, we’re very proud of him,” undersheriff Joe Knight said. “He did more than we could ever ask. But that’s the kind of man he is.”
Agee said that it being close to Christmas motivated some of his actions. “It’s Christmas time, what else could I do. One of the toughest times I ever faced as an officer were at Christmas when I had to watch three people pass away and three house fires. It’s a hard time to face something like this and I wanted to do everything I could for them.”
“On the scene that night, the home owners of our street praised officer Agee and shook his hand for the great work he did,” Kimber reported.
For more on this story see the Letters to the Editor in today’s paper.
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