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Home Destroyed by Afternoon Fire
May 22, 2009
By Jason Niblett, newseditor@laurelleadercall.com
March 24, 2009 10:24 am
— Cooking an afternoon meal quickly turned into disaster for a Jones County family.
A grease fire quickly spread through a mobile home at 1596 Ellisville-Tuckers Crossing Road near Luther Hill Road Monday afternoon. A mother and her child were able to escape, but they lost most of their possessions.
“The fire apparently began in the kitchen as a grease fire and it spread quickly through two-thirds of the home,” Powers Assistant Chief Lance Chancellor said. “It was a very aggressive fire. The home will be considered a total loss.”
EmServ was dispatched to the scene with the report of injuries. A neighbor had broken into a window and attempted to calm the fire with water. The unidentified person was treated at the scene with hand injuries. The fire was so hot that a television in a room not engulfed by flames melted from the heat.
The Jones County Sheriff’s Department was also called to the scene to help with crowd control.
Chancellor said scenes like the one Monday afternoon shows the importance of the American Red Cross Pine Belt Chapter and the local Salvation Army.
“You hate for anyone to lose a home, but they’re fortunate they’ll be able to go to the Red Cross and Salvation Army,” Chancellor said. “Matt Everette (disaster services coordinator for the Red Cross) has already been notified. If you can give locally, these are the agencies, and the Christian Food Mission and all the others, that when something like this happens, they step into action. These dollars stay locally and help your neighbors. Their mission starts as soon as ours is done and we call them.”
Chancellor said people should remember that fire victims often lose everything in a blaze, including things people would take for granted when looking for shelter.
“Unless you have family in the area, there is nothing else to do. People lose purses, cash, credit cards ...” he said.
The Glade, Powers, M&M, and Ellisville fire departments responded to the house with four engines, two tankers, and a rescue truck. The response came just moments after these same departments had joined others in a huge 35-acre fire near Sandersville. That fire, Chancellor said, threatened a oil tanker farm.
Chancellor praised firefighters for their work in stopping the fire before it spread to other nearby mobile homes in the park. He also expressed gratitude to three teenagers — Devin Mann, Kevin Mann, and Tyler Stopes — who assisted firefighters at the scene.
“They did a good job helping us carry air bottles in when we changed them out,” Chancellor said.
There isn’t much left but the remains of furniture, appliances, and building materials following a mobile home fire on Ellisville-Tuckers Crossing Road in Jones County Monday. The residents of the home were able to escape the fire without injury.
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