Closed door saves bedroom
News Photo by Julie Riddle A room in an Alpena home is seen on Sunday after it was destroyed by a Saturday fire.
News Photo by Julie Riddle A battery, seen here on Sunday, remains in the melted case of a smoke detector mounted outside a bedroom where heat damage was stopped by a closed door during a Saturday fire in Alpena.
News Photo by Julie Riddle Melted kitchen blinds in an Alpena home show the intensity of the heat of a fire in an adjacent room on Saturday.
News Photo by Julie Riddle The insides of a melted television remain on Sunday after a Saturday afternoon fire -- possibly caused by an improperly extinguished cigarette -- destroyed part of an Alpena home.
News Photo by Julie Riddle A melted fly swatter, immediately outside a closed door that prevented smoke and heat damage into a bedroom during a Saturday fire in Alpena, on Sunday shows the intensity of the heat of a fire that destroyed a nearby sitting room.
News Photo by Julie Riddle Andy Marceau, community risk reduction officer for the Alpena Fire Department, displays damage to a sitting room in an Alpena home caused by a Saturday afternoon fire. A closed bedroom door blocked heat and smoke damage to that room.
News Photo by Julie Riddle A room in an Alpena home is seen on Sunday after it was destroyed by a Saturday fire.
News Photo by Julie Riddle A battery, seen here on Sunday, remains in the melted case of a smoke detector mounted outside a bedroom where heat damage was stopped by a closed door during a Saturday fire in Alpena.
News Photo by Julie Riddle Melted kitchen blinds in an Alpena home show the intensity of the heat of a fire in an adjacent room on Saturday.
News Photo by Julie Riddle The insides of a melted television remain on Sunday after a Saturday afternoon fire -- possibly caused by an improperly extinguished cigarette -- destroyed part of an Alpena home.
News Photo by Julie Riddle A melted fly swatter, immediately outside a closed door that prevented smoke and heat damage into a bedroom during a Saturday fire in Alpena, on Sunday shows the intensity of the heat of a fire that destroyed a nearby sitting room.
News Photo by Julie Riddle Andy Marceau, community risk reduction officer for the Alpena Fire Department, displays damage to a sitting room in an Alpena home caused by a Saturday afternoon fire. A closed bedroom door blocked heat and smoke damage to that room.
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ALPENA -- A closed door warded off the intense heat of a fire at an Alpena home on Saturday -- a potentially life-saving reminder to "close before you doze," according to Andy Marceau, community risk reduction officer for the Alpena Fire Department.
Firefighters were called to the North 12th Avenue home about 4 p.m. Saturday. The resident, who left about 20 minutes before the fire, was uninjured, but a fire in a sitting room destroyed the walls and furniture of that room.
Though the fire was contained to the room, its intense heat blackened the adjacent kitchen, melting blinds, kitchen supplies, and even the smoke detector outside the resident's bedroom door.
The door to that room was closed, however. That closed door kept all heat damage out of the bedroom, Marceau said on Sunday.
Despite visible damage on the outside of the bedroom door, that room's walls, ceiling, and furnishing were white and untouched.
"I'd love to have this as a museum and have everyone come through here and go, 'OK, I'm closing my bedroom door tonight,'" Marceau said in the damaged home on Sunday.
The Alpena Fire Department responded to the fire. The cause of the fire is still under investigation but is likely to be an improperly extinguished cigarette, Marceau said.