9 p.m.: Chief: Fire at trailer park ‘suspicious’

Shawn McGrath

November 15, 2007 08:58 pm

— shawn.mcgrath@heraldbulletin.com
Fire officials are investigating what sparked a suspicious blaze that leveled a mobile home just outside the Anderson city limits on Thursday, the third such fire at the trailer park since the summer.
Richland Township volunteer firefighters were called to the unoccupied home in the small trailer park at 2913 N. Scatterfield Road shortly before 1:30 p.m. after a man working on another trailer spotted the fire, said Matt Whitehead, Richland Township’s first assistant fire chief.
Whitehead said no one was living in the home at the time, and the utilities to the home had been turned off about a week ago, leading fire officials to suspect that the blaze was intentionally set.
“They’re thinking right now it might have been arson,” Whitehead said.
He said the fire started in the home’s living room-kitchen area, but they don’t know what ignited the blaze.
James Dye, a fire investigator with the Madison County Emergency Management Agency, said it was too early to determine the fire’s cause.
“No idea,” he said. “It’s just under investigation, and we’ll have to wait and see.”
Whitehead said firefighters had the blaze under control shortly before 2:15 p.m. Frankton and Chesterfield-Union Township firefighters assisted at the scene. No firefighters were injured battling the fire.
The home was fully engulfed with flames when firefighters arrived, Whitehead said. He said he suspected an accelerant was used to get the fire going.
“More or less gasoline,” Whitehead said.
He said it’s the third such suspicious blaze at the trailer park since this summer. In all the cases, he said, the utilities had been turned off to the homes and they were uninhabited. Investigators don’t yet know how those blazes were set.
Whitehead couldn’t immediately provide the dates of the previous fires.
Whitney Faircloth, who lives at a neighboring trailer, believes one of the previous fires was caused by workers tearing down an adjacent trailer. She said the other trailer was being scrapped for its metal frame when sparks from a saw caused the neighboring trailer’s exposed insulation to ignite.
Faircloth, who has lived in the trailer park for four years, said she wasn’t aware of the second summer fire.

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