FELLSMERE — It was a Christmas Day Iven Smith won’t soon forget. A lifelong Fellsmere resident, Smith still lives on the street where he grew up – Oleander Street in Fellsmere.
His folks, Dollie and Ellis Smith, live just next door, and his sister resides down the street a ways, in the home that was once their grandparents’.
Smith has been repairing motorcycles and 4-wheelers virtually all his life and, in 2001, had established his business – Ike’s Bikes – adjacent to his house, with a large garage in front and a fenced compound to the rear.
Just before the holiday, Smith had moved dozens of customers’ vehicles from the garage out into the compound, under a large, canvas- canopied tent, to clear space so he could get some work done on his own 4-wheeler.
On Dec. 25, family and friends were at Dollie and Ellis’ house, sitting outside, enjoying the pleasant weather and looking forward to Christmas Dinner. Smith had planned to take his friends for a ride on his 4-wheeler later in the day.
He recalls that there had been casual comments about what sounded like big firecrackers going off nearby. Figuring it was some holiday celebrating, they disregarded the noises.
Then Smith’s father said the noises had begun to sound different and, shortly after that, a friend drove up, jumped out of her van and excitedly announced that Smith’s fenced compound was on fire.
Someone called 911. By the time Smith raced across the yard to his place, past his garage, and back to the compound, the entire area was ablaze.
Row after row of bikes were consumed in flames, their plastic bodies curling, dripping to the ground, tires melting into viscous puddles, paint burning off the metal, leaving only warped frames.
Even the rows of 4-wheelers stored outside the tent near the back fence had melted into grotesque shapes.
Smith’s house was separated from the compound only by a narrow shed, and the fire had already scorched the shed’s wooden ceiling beams.
On the house’s wooden exterior wall facing the blaze, the paint was bubbling and peeling, and the fire, Smith said, “was hot enough that sap was leaking out of the boards.”
The proximity of the flames was enough to crack the bedroom window glass and melt the venetian blinds inside. The gutters he had installed just the week before was melted beyond repair.
Smith quickly grabbed the garden hose and began spraying the house and shed, striving to keep the blaze from igniting his home.
The heat from the blazing compound was such that he had to keep retreating toward the garage.
An officer from the Fellsmere Police Department and a unit from Fellsmere Fire Station 10 responded, and eventually the fire was extinguished.
According to the preliminary Police report, Fire Battalion Chief Bill Michel assessed the scene and, after noting the damage, contacted the State Fire Marshall to request a further investigation into the cause of the blaze. The Fire Marshall visited the scene shortly thereafter.
Smith had previously told the police he is not aware of any enemies, and says the police officer told him a couple of reports of fireworks in the neighborhood had been called in earlier.
The Fire Marshall, according to Smith, believes the blaze started at the base of one of the vertical wooden poles that supported the canopy structure, pointing out that the pole itself and the 4-wheeler frame next to it are more intensely burned.
Smith was able to provide the Fire Marshall with videos of the fire, from start to full involvement, captured by his two security cameras.
They clearly show the beginnings of the blaze, licking around the post, then the frames are filled with flames as the whole compound becomes involved.
Standing in the burned out compound, surrounded by the scorched frames of dozens of melted bikes and 4-wheelers, Smith gazes at the destruction, still barely able to process what has happened, or how he should move forward.
“If I hadn’t moved all of these out of the garage. . . .”
“I thought the house was going to go. . . .”
“I’ve never taken a vacation. I had just shut down for Christmas. . .”
Smith worked at Piper for years, repairing bikes on the side. When he was laid off after the hurricanes in 2004, he started to go at it full time.
“I got insurance on my business. I never had a claim. I had just renewed it, (the rates doubled this year) but when I got the papers, they were all blank.”
When he called about the Christmas Day fire, he learned that, apparently, his policy doesn’t cover fire.
Iven Smith is not a man to bewail his fate. He’ll handle what he has to handle – he just hasn’t quite figured out how yet.
But, with a genuine smile, he says, “It could have been worse. The house is OK, the garage is OK, and no one got hurt.
“I’m a country boy,” he says with determination, quoting Hank William’s famous lyrics, “and – A Country Boy Can Survive!”
