St. Ray's Students Spot Burning House, 2 Lives Saved

JOLIET, IL — On Sunday morning, Joliet resident Steve Blotnick was picking up his two daughters and another friend from a sleepover on Tana Lane when one of the girls exclaimed that one of the houses on the street might be on fire. Blotnick pulled over and looked in his rear-view mirror. The girls were right. The garage at 609 Tana Lane was on fire.

Blotnick and the three girls in his car, Annie Tibbott, Claire Blotnick and Ellie Blotnick, all seventh and eighth graders at St. Ray's grade school, drove back to the house to investigate.

When he got to the front door, Steve Blotnick said he could hear several smoke detectors going off, and there was a strong smell of smoke filling up the house.

He also noticed the garage door was open and there were cars parked there. The garage continued to fill with thick, black smoke.

"It was on fire," he told Joliet Patch on Sunday afternoon.

His instincts told him there had to be people still inside.

Fearful that the homeowners were unaware of the smoke billowing out of their garage, Blotnick said he tried to open the front door several times, but it would not budge.

Finally, he got it open, he told Patch.

Inside, the house was filled with smoke, and he saw a small, older lady. She was wearing a pink bathrobe and holding a cane. He eventually got her out of the house to safety.

Moments later, Blotnick learned, there was still a second person inside. An older man emerged from another of the rooms.

The man alerted Steve Blotnick that his cats were somewhere inside the house.

The man kept saying, "My cats! My cats! I grabbed him ... I yelled, 'I'm leaving. You gotta come,'" Blotnick remembered saying.

About this time, the Joliet Fire Department arrived on the scene. Firefighters spent about an hour extinguishing the blaze. All three cats were saved from the burning house, the fire department noted.

The fire on the city's west side was reported around 10:30 a.m.

Blotnick said it was his daughters and their friend who deserve all the credit for spotting the fire.

He said the girls took the initiative of calling 911 to report the burning house and alerting the neighbor who had hosted the sleepover as well.

If his daughter Claire did not alert him to the working fire during the drive home, Steve Blotnick said, he's 100 percent certain the entire house would have gone up in flames and the older couple surely would have perished.

Steve Blotnick told Patch the older couple appeared to be disoriented.

He said the education regarding fire safety that the girls had learned at St. Ray's school was instrumental in helping save two lives on Sunday morning.

"It truly was," he said. "By the time I ran out of the truck, I ran right to the front door and I didn't tell them what to do. They did it. All three girls are very smart. They acted with no direction at all. It's a real testament to our youth. I was never so proud of those three girls. It was awesome."

Tana Lane is between Black Road and Glenwood Avenue. City fire stations 6,7, 8 and 5 responded to the burning house, and firefighters spotted heavy fire damage inside the garage area, Fire Chief Greg Blaskey told Joliet Patch.

The remainder of the home sustained significant smoke and water damage and will not be habitable. The investigation is still in its preliminary stage and cause and estimates of loss are not yet available, the chief said.

On Saturday night, Joliet's Fire Department battled another west-side structure fire that caused significant damage to a house in the Mayfair subdivision.

For more on that Joliet Patch story about the fire on Billie Lemacher Drive, go here.