WINSLOW — A fire late Tuesday morning at a mobile home in Pleasant Ridge Mobile Home Park off Benton Avenue was sparked by a heating system malfunction, according to Winslow fire Lt. Jeff Reny.
“The smoke pipe had a hole in it and it burned into the insulation,” Reny said at the scene.
The owners of the mobile home, Jerry and Lisa Carson, who are in their 50s, noticed smoke inside their home around 11 a.m. and called for help.
“I was in the kitchen and she was in the bedroom and the next thing we know, it was full of smoke,” Jerry Carson said. “It was quick.”
Carson was standing outside Tuesday in the sleet and freezing rain, watching firefighters work. They used a ladder truck to access the mobile home’s roof and pull the smoke pipe from the roof.
Carson said this is the second time the couple has been hit by fire.
“In 2014, we lost everything we owned in a fire out in Oakland,” Carson recalled. “Right after that, we bought this trailer.”
Carson said that in the Oakland fire, the tenant who lived below him was cleaning out a wood stove and it caught on fire, destroying the apartment building.
The blue-and-white mobile home in Winslow, which was new in 1972, has its original oil furnace, according to Carson.
Ten Winslow firefighters worked at the scene Tuesday in the wet and cold, hauling smoldering insulation out of the trailer and working from both the roof and inside.
Reny said they were digging out wallboard and trying to make sure the fire was out.
It was not clear whether the Carsons would be able to stay in the home Tuesday night. Jerry Carson said he has relatives and a neighbor they could stay with temporarily.
“I don’t like to ask for help,” he said.
The mobile home park is at 670 Benton Ave., and Carson’s trailer was on lot 12.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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