Three homeless after trailers burn
Three people, including an elderly couple, are homeless after a blaze Saturday destroyed two mobile homes near the south shore of Silver Lake in the West Plains.
The fire at Picnic Pines Trailer Park, 9212 S. Silver Lake Road in Medical Lake, was the second in less than a year. Last August, five mobile homes burned to the ground after a tree fell on a power line. High winds that day whipped up flames that began at one trailer, engulfing the other four.
Residents of the mobile home park feared that would happen again Saturday morning.
The fire, which was reported shortly before 11:30 a.m., started inside the trailer at space 13, but a breeze quickly spread the flames to two nearby pine trees and the mobile home at space 12.
The blaze produced a black cloud of smoke that was visible for miles.
“These trailers are basically tinderboxes, so when they catch fire they’re gone,” said Lori Roesch, who lives in a mobile home across from the two that burned Saturday.
More than a dozen firefighters from the Medical Lake Fire Department and Spokane County Fire District 3 responded to the blaze. Despite the firefighters’ presence, several residents stood nervously outside their homes, fearing the flames would spread.
“I’m going to sell my trailer and move,” said Harold Burke, a five-year resident.
Many of the mobile homes in Picnic Pines are decades old, with exteriors made of deteriorated plywood and aluminum, he said. “Ten minutes after I called 911, it was gone,” Burke said, describing the destruction of the trailer at space 13.
The elderly couple who lived at the home managed to escape, said Roesch, but one of their cats died. They are now receiving emergency assistance from the Inland Northwest chapter of the American Red Cross.
Wayne Jackson, owner of the charred trailer next door, was awakened by the couple’s screams and quickly ran outside. Neighbors tried to stop the fire from spreading to his trailer, but their buckets of water were futile against the flames. When the trees caught fire, they decided to back off, Jackson said.
“It hasn’t quite hit me yet,” said Jackson, watching helplessly as fire crews hosed down the embers.
Although he has family and friends he can stay with in Spokane, he doesn’t have insurance to cover his losses. “I guess I have to start all over,” he said.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, according to Deputy Chief Brian Anderson of Fire District 3, who was on the scene.