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TRENTON — A father of two narrowly escaped a fire that tore a gaping hole in the roof of his Linda Court home.

Chris Murray was using a heat gun to take the laminate off his kitchen counter tops about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 24, when the lacquer thinner ignited in a wall of flames, he said.

"I barely made it out," Murray said. "If I would have tripped I wouldn't have made it out of the house."

It wasn't Murray's only close call, either. Shortly after the fire ignited at his ranch-style home at 239 Linda Court, he had to race back in to prevent an explosion.

"I ran in there and grabbed the propane," he said. "It wasn't a minute later the ceiling and roof fell down."

With his two children, Christopher, 8, and Caitlin, 2, safe at a neighbor's house, Murray and his wife, Rose, watched as the home they'd spent months remodeling go up in flames. Both expressed anger at the 911 system.

Murray said firefighters lost valuable minutes when his initial cell phone call to 911 was routed to Hamilton, then transferred to Butler County before it finally reached Trenton.

According to Trenton dispatchers, the call came in at 4:25 p.m. and firefighters arrived on scene at 4:34 p.m. Hamilton dispatchers said they were unable to say what time the call initially came in.

"It took them a good 7, 8 minutes to get here and I can run to the fire department in a couple of minutes," he said. "Today's our son's birthday. He just turned 8."

The blaze destroyed Christopher's new Xbox 360, but it didn't ruin his birthday party.

In perhaps the only silver lining amid the clouds of smoke, the family already had celebrated the occasion with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park in Mason this weekend, Rose Murray said.

"We're done with the birthday cake and presents," she said.

Trenton fire Chief Tom Puckett said flames already were shooting out the garage and the roof when he arrived on scene.

Firefighters fought the blaze inside the home for about 20 minutes before he called them out in favor of a more defensive strategy.

"We just weren't making any headway," Puckett said.

Firefighters used a Monroe ladder truck to shoot water into the 30-foot wide hole the fire had opened in the home's roof. It took another half hour before the blaze was brought under control, Puckett said. He estimated the damage to the three-bedroom single-family home and its contents at $180,000.

"I'd say the house is pretty much a total loss," he said.