Family Picks Up Pieces after Fire on Elston Kerr Street
On Easter Sunday afternoon, fire personnel were called to put out a fire inside a room at an unpainted wooden bungalow house belonging to domestic Dawn Faber of Racoon Street Extension. Damages were limited to a few items. But News Five was called back this afternoon to the same residence, to find the scene of greater destruction. The same house that had been scorched previously was now completely gutted, with the front face of the dwelling behind it blackened and scars showing on a third house joined to the second. While no one was living in the house, the twelve members of the Meighan family living in the other two houses are still homeless tonight thanks to massive fire and water damage. We spoke off-camera to one family member who recalled what happened.
Voice of: Jaron Meighan, Fire Victim
“This morning around two-thirty, a structure, a wooden structure was lit on fire or something happened; I’m not sure exactly. From my experience I was in my bedroom sleeping around two thirty, again, smoke – a person from the residence behind the building that was completely burned, smoke had the resident get up and inform members of the household that there was a fire in the yard. Upon hearing this information, everyone exited the structure behind that was being burnt and everyone came outside. During tht time, the wooden structure was engulfed in flames and nothing was saved from that strucuture. However, a different structure behind the totally burned structure caught on fire but the Fire Department was already on the scene; was able to out the neighboring yard structure on the left hand corner there, the yellow wooden structure, as well as the structure behind. In my household it’s more of the water damage than the fire itself. The surface of my home was burnt, as well the ceiling of my home, my living room and my room itself was destroyed. If you take a walk inside the house you would see the different structures that had been damaged. Basic stuff: mattress, my vehicle has been burned as well, both of my vehicles; computer was damaged, phones, different devices, basically; chairs, those are water-damaged.”
The fire spread too quickly for Fire Service personnel to contain despite their best efforts. The family say they have no enemies and no idea why they would be targeted in this way. Those who wish to assist may call Jaron Meighan at 629-1400 or 634-3454.
