RE: Residential Structure Fire – 34676 Scarp Street – Pot Nets Bayside

"Resilient - Finding strength and embracing life... Grieving - After a loss that changes everything..." - Lucy Hone, PHD

On behalf of the Indian River Volunteer Fire Company and our mutual aid entities, we are completely devastated and distraught by this event that occurred on Wednesday afternoon – August 7, 2019 in the Pot Nets Bayside development.

We are deeply saddened and offer our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the three children who did not survive the tragic house fire.

While everyone is grieving and stunned by the loss of these three precious young children, we are extremely grateful for the devotion and efforts of the emergency first responders, community neighbors and residents who were first to arrive and offer assistance.

The emergency first responders were assigned monumental tasks and responsibilities that will be forever etched in their memories and will need assistance and counseling to address their healing and coping mechanisms. 

For some emergency first responders, these events bring back undesirable memories of the past incident history within the Indian River Fire District - where four generations of one family perished – seven children and four adults in January, 2001.  Some of these emergency first responders, law enforcement officers and incident investigators were in their early stages of their respective careers and assisted with this unfortunate incident as well.  For other emergency first responders, this current event will be forever etched in their memories and indelibly mark its existence and will not be forgotten.  For every emergency first responder, the loss of any child is always an extremely traumatic and unforgettable incident that severely alters and shapes one’s life moving forward.

Therefore, many of these emergency first responders are pursuing periods and cycles of critical incident stress management and debriefing sessions as well as other counseling needs and services. 

It is essential to realize that not only are the families, friends, neighbors and community residents trying to grasp, comprehend and cope with the magnitude of this incident – the emergency first responders are grappling with their feelings that more could have been performed.  This entire community feels the burden of these untimely and tragic circumstances.

The Indian River Volunteer Fire Company wishes to express its gratitude and appreciation to all emergency first responders that offered assistance as well as sympathies and condolences to the families and we ask that all of our communities keep these respective families and emergency first responders in their thoughts and prayers while we work through these difficult times.

We offer our prayers for these children. We offer our prayers for these family members. We offer our prayers for this community.  We pray that we can remain strong and develop better avenues of outreach for our fire prevention and fire safety programs.  It is our utmost desire to ameliorate these terrible circumstances from reoccurring.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you! 

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