Firefighters Prevent Spread Of Flames In Mobile Home Park
By BILL JONES
Staff Writer
Two Greene County women escaped a fire early Saturday that destroyed their home and threatened other nearby structures.
However, both Samantha Arwood, 30, and Julie Pounds, 51, suffered smoke inhalation.
A report filed by Greene County Deputy Sheriff Adam Arrington indicated that the residence was a mobile home in the Stonecrest Park mobile home development off Tennessee Rt. 70 (the Asheville Highway).
But firefighters said the structure was actually a house owned by Eric Cobble that had been moved there from another location.
Regie Jones, chief of the DeBusk Volunteer Fire Department, said Saturday that 10 firefighters from his department and 10 firefighters from the Sunnyside VFD responded to the 3:45 a.m. Saturday fire.
Two fire trucks from each department also responded, he said.
Escaped With Pets
Chief Jones said Arwood and Pounds managed to escape the burning residence with their pet cats before firefighters arrived. Jones said he had received conflicting reports as to whether a smoke alarm or the smoke from the fire had awakened the sleeping women.
"They grabbed their cats and ran out the front door, but both suffered smoke inhalation," Jones said.
He noted that Pounds was taken to Takoma Regional Hospital, where she was treated and released, while Arwood was treated at the scene by emergency medical personnel.
"The flames were visible from the roof of the residence as we pulled into the trailer park," Jones said, noting that two electrical transformers mounted on a utility pole at the mobile home park also were "glowing red hot" when firefighters arrived.
The chief said that, while firefighters were in the process of unloading hose from the first fire truck to attack the blaze at the Arwood and Pounds residence, another resident of the mobile home park approached and said his residence was on fire as well.
Jones said firefighters used a fire extinguisher to put out an electrical fire in the electrical circuit-breaker box of the second home.
Other Homes Threatened
Chief Jones said the fire at the residence of Arwood and Pounds threatened two single-wide mobile homes that were positioned close to the burning residence.
He said one of the mobile homes sustained damage to its vinyl siding as the result of heat from the adjacent fire, but firefighters were able to keep flames from spreading to the two other mobile homes.
Jones said the fire apparently had begun at the rear of the Arwood and Pounds residence and was "pushed" by gusting winds toward the front of the structure and toward nearby mobile homes.
At one point, he said, a strong gust of wind caused flames to flare toward firefighters. "It almost knocked Eric Walton, of Sunnyside VFD, and me down," Jones said of the fire. "We had to take refuge behind a mobile home."
Chief Jones said a Sunnyside VFD firefighter who had driven a fire truck onto adjacent Crossover Lane reported that the roofs of homes located there were covered with ash and embers from the Stonecrest Park fire when he arrived.
"The wind was really causing havoc out there," Jones said.
He said firefighters used more than 10,000 gallons of water in fighting the Saturday-morning fire.
Firefighters remained on the scene until about 7:30 a.m. Saturday, he said.
Also responding to the blaze were a Greene County-Greeneville Emergency Medical Services ambulance, a Response One medical-first-response unit based at the South Greene Volunteer Fire Department, a disaster services unit from the Greene County Chapter of the American Red Cross, Greene County sheriff's deputies and a Greeneville Light & Power System crew.
