Fire Victims Go Home, Find Only Rubble Smoking Wreckage Of Mobile Homes Greets Uninsured Woman, 83, And Son

Beulah Olsen had just put a chicken in the oven for dinner when the fire trucks pulled up her steep drive.

Firefighters urged the 83-year-old woman and her 66-year-old son to evacuate their neighboring mobile homes early Thursday afternoon.

Olsen and Don Marshall dashed out of the wooded 10-acre lot on Highway 291 five miles west of Tum Tum. They fled with only the clothes on their backs, her cat Squeaky and the urn holding his wife’s ashes.

Ragged, tired and still wearing the same clothes, the pair returned Friday morning to witness the work of the wildfire on their only belongings. They had guessed there might be damage, but had no idea everything would be ruined.

Marshall had lived on the land for nearly 20 years. His mother moved next door two years ago.

When they drove onto the property, smoke still streamed from the ground and the land looked bombed-out and unearthly.

Marshall’s children began digging through the smoky wreckage.

“We were kind of hoping to find my mom’s ‘mother’s ring,”’ said Marshall’s daughter, Sheri. The ring had been a gift to her mother before she died of diabetes.

They searched, but didn’t find it.

The charred yard had been a treasure trove where Marshall stored old farm equipment, tools and furniture - all of which was destroyed. His gun collection was reduced to twisted barrels, which burned his hands when he pulled them from the rubble.

The group only recovered a tin box of scorched half-dollars, a few ceramic figurines and a snowplow that attaches to the front of a truck. The truck and a few other vehicles, including a 1963 Chevrolet Bel Aire with 43,000 miles on it, were decimated.

“It’s all gone,” Olsen said as she stood facing her crumpled home.

Mike Smith’s property about a mile up the road was also punished by the blaze.

Though Smith wasn’t there, his family Friday surveyed the smoking mass that only a day earlier was a trailer home and adjoining office where Smith did computer repair.

The skeleton of an iron bed poked from the wreckage and a pile of computer hard drives smoldered on the ground.

“It’s a loss, but they’re not out on the street,” said Art Bradley, Smith’s father-in-law and owner of the property. Smith’s wife has another home nearby.

A Red Cross official visited both families, offering cold drinks and comfort. Joyce Cameron promised to help them find clothes and shelter, and replace medicine lost in the blaze.

Though the Red Cross had emergency shelters set up near the Tum Tum and Newkirk fires Thursday night, no one stopped in. The shelters will remain on standby until the fires are under control, Cameron said.

The Red Cross will work with families and anyone else who needs assistance to help them recover from the fire, she said.

Smith, Marshall and Olsen had no insurance to cover their losses.

“Just recently a man told me, ‘Cheer up, things could be worse,”’ Marshall said. “I cheered up and things got worse.”

As Marshall and his mother gave up their hunt for salvageable belongings, he spotted a pair of vultures circling overhead.

“Get out of here!” he yelled.

Olsen reached up and rubbed the ash off her son’s nose with her thumb. Then she turned and took a final look at her gutted trailer.

“Let’s blow this joint,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Help Fire victims who need shelter or would like to obtain help from the Red Cross can call the agency at 326-3330.

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Hannelore Sudermann Staff writer Staff writer Adam Lynn contributed to this report.