Kwame Miller moved his family into a new house on To-Lani Drive in DeKalb County three days ago.
Miller said he hadn’t yet gotten the utilities transferred from the family’s previous home, so with the temperatures dropping, “I was just trying to keep the kids warm and use the fireplace.”
But during the middle of the coldest night since last winter, “I kept hearing this crackling sound,” Miller told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I felt the wall and it was hot, and the next thing I know, I started seeing flames flickering inside the light socket.”
Miller got his family, including children ages 10 and 11, out of the house safely and called 911.
“We’re not really sure how [the fire] got out of the fire box, but it did get into the walls around the fireplace and did some pretty good damage to the living room area,” DeKalb fire Chief Doug Brown said.
Despite the damage, “it could have been a lot worse,” Miller said. “Nobody lost their life and nobody’s hurt.”
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