Fire destroys trailer; owner wasn”t home

Fire took only minutes to gut a mobile home Wednesday night about two hours after the homeowner had left her residence at the Iron Wheel Mobile Home Park.

Ed Quinn, 48, said he was doing yard work when he noticed smoke coming from a neighboring mobile home just after 7 p.m.

He knew the home wasn’t occupied because he remembered seeing the resident drive away from the complex, 2002 S. Inland Empire Way, a couple of hours before, Quinn said.

“I knew she wasn’t home. But I thought of the dog,” Quinn said.

After checking to make sure the smoke wasn’t a barbecue or a brush pile, Quinn decided to kick in the woman’s front door.

“I walked over there and all the windows started blowing out when I was standing there,” he said. “When I kicked in the door, a great big cloud of smoke billowed out.”

Quinn got down low and could see an opening under the wall of smoke. “I was just hoping the dog would come, but he never came out.”

Quinn’s girlfriend, Patty Shogren, said she started to get nervous when she saw the smoke turn to flames and Quinn was calling for the dog. “I yelled at him to get out because I thought it was going to blow.”

Within minutes, flames were shooting from the blue mobile home with a pitched roof.

William Pentz, 25, said he saw a fire truck go by, then noticed the smoke.

“I walked over here and I saw the flames pouring out the side windows. It was huge. The whole thing was on fire,” Pentz said.

Spokane fire crews arrived at the engulfed mobile home and knocked down most of the flames in a few minutes, Battalion Chief Craig Cornelius said.

Fire crews searched the home and did not find anyone inside. They also didn’t find her dog.

Two neighbors said they heard a fire alarm going off during the fire. But, Cornelius said, they had not been able to contact the homeowner so they were unsure what might have caused the blaze.

Marjie Roen, 54, leaned on her cane as she watched fire crews strip burning boards off the burned shell of a home.

“I’ve been through two apartment building fires myself,” Roen said. “This is so tragic. These mobile homes burn so fast. You just lose everything.

“It’s every mobile home owner’s nightmare,” she said.