CHRIS MORIN and his aunt, Roxanne Rogers, retrieve their dog, Lady, from the side of their burning home as firefighters work to put out the blaze.(The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[05/16/02]When Denise Hluska arrived at her Williams Road home Wednesday afternoon, there was nothing she could do but watch as firefighters struggled against the flames engulfing the house.

From a neighbor’s yard across the street, she called friends and relatives on a cellular telephone as gray and black smoke filled the air up and down the narrow city street.

“My house is burning. My house is burning right before my eyes,” Hluska shouted into the phone.

Hluska called 911 around 2:30 after a friend who brings home her children every day from Dana Road Elementary School called her about smoke coming out of the house at 125 Williams Road. No one was home when Jodie Johnson arrived with the two kids.

Johnson said the youngest child, 7-year-old Kimberly, opened the door and saw the family’s dog, Lady, crawling on the floor toward the door as smoke began filling the room.

Johnson got the two children back and waited for the first fire truck to arrive.

“The smoke was so thick that I couldn’t see back into the kitchen,” Johnson said. “The smoke kept getting worse and worse and then the house just burst into flames.”

Just before the first of the fire could be seen, Johnson said she heard a loud explosion in the home that busted out a front window. She said she believes it was one of the oxygen tanks used by Hluska’s mother, Marie Rogers, who also lives in the house along with Hluska’s sister, Roxanne Rogers, and Hluska’s husband, John Hluska.

All together, six people lived in the house. Everything was lost, including Christmas presents Hluska had already bought this year.

“I just thank God nobody was home,” Hluska said.

Vicksburg Fire Department Deputy Chief Rose Shaifer said the house was destroyed.

“We believe the fire had been burning for a while,” Shaifer said.

Fire investigators are continuing to look for what started the flames. Shaifer said it appears that the blaze began near the center of the home.

The fire department spent four hours beating back the blaze that quickly spread across the roof of the structure. Smoke that rolled up from the mostly wood addition to the original structure could be seen from North Frontage Road and along Pemberton Square Boulevard.

Williams Road is off Halls Ferry Road just north of Cain Ridge Road.