Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Saturday

Related Photos

  • Clifford Merrick Record-Eagle/Keith King/Keith King

    CSSA42C.jpg
February 4, 2012

Cause of fatal Kingsley fire might be forever unknown

BY ART BUKOWSKI abukowski@record-eagle.com

KINGSLEY — Fire investigators believe they might never find out what caused a blaze that killed a World War II veteran.

Clifford Merrick, a Battle of the Bulge veteran who turned 90 in December, died in a house fire Jan. 28. His home on Jackson Road south of Kingsley was fully engulfed when authorities arrived, and the structure was completely destroyed.

Grand Traverse County Rural Fire Department Chief Bill Sedlacek said his department and Michigan State Police fire investigators decided to leave the fire's cause "undetermined," at least for now.

That decision is because of the scale of destruction, Sedlacek said. The fire was extremely intense, and crews used heavy excavating equipment to rip through the rubble in an effort to find Merrick.

"We had to dig the whole building, and after that there was no room for cause and origin," he said.

But while investigators found no concrete physical evidence of what may have cause the fire, they still plan to speak with a disabled woman who lived with Merrick and his wife, Sally Merrick, to see what she may know.

That woman was taken to a Grand Rapids hospital for treatment of her injuries. Her condition is improving, Sedlacek said, but she's "not out of the woods."

Family friend Rick Conley said the woman smoked and used oxygen from a tank. Sally Merrick awoke at about 4 a.m. to find the woman on fire, so it's possible the combination of smoking and oxygen use sparked the blaze, Conley said.

But Sally also stoked the home's wood-burning stove only hours before the blaze, so that also could have played a role. Whatever the cause, Conley said the family would appreciate knowing.

"They would like some closure," he said.

Sally dragged the disabled woman from the house and called 911, but the flames were too intense to rescue Clifford by the time she got back in the house. She's still struggling with that, Conley said.

"Sally seems to be doing OK," he said. "She blames herself ... but she did what she could at the time," he said.

After the war, Clifford Merrick settled in northern Michigan. In the 1960s, he opened a nine-hole golf course in Acme at the current site of the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa. He also owned and operated an insurance agency for nearly 50 years before retiring in 1995.

A memorial service was scheduled for Friday evening at Reynolds-Jonkhoff Funeral Home. A military funeral service is scheduled for July, Conley said.

Text Only