Highlands Today
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BREAKING NEWS: Fire Destroys Mobile Home In Avon Park
Kathy Waters/Highlands Today
A firefighter puts out a hot spot Tuesday at a mobile home fire at Southland Court in Avon Park. Firefighters from Avon Park and Highlands Lakes responded to the fire.
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Published: September 2, 2008
AVON PARK - AVON PARK An accidental fire at 125 N. Florida Ave. displaced an Avon Park woman and her 12-year-old son Tuesday morning. Their two-bedroom trailer in the Southland Court trailer park was a total loss.
Clara Walker, 46, sat in quiet disbelief in the driver's seat of her car. She had just gone out for a little while to go to a plumber and to the store.
Someone who knew her daughter was riding by on a bicycle and told her that her trailer, which she owns, was on fire, she said, so she rushed home.
"I've lost everything," she said, making a zero with her thumb and index finger. "I had no insurance, zero! Living on disability, it's a little hard getting insurance on it."
She called a few companies. She just couldn't afford it, she said. They had lived in it for the last six months.
Her health isn't the best, either. Walker's on a morphine pump, and said she has been forced to sleep sitting up in a recliner chair. That's gone, too.
"Sometimes my daughter uses my car," she said. "Everyone was afraid I was asleep in there."
A wave of sadness briefly overcame her when she thought of the irreplaceable photos of her late husband, still inside the melted metal walls.
Walker said her husband of 29 years, Larry Walker, died in December of a massive heart attack.
Avon Elementary School wanted to do something nice for her boy, Christopher, so they give him a brand new bicycle, she said.
The melted-and-charred bicycle frame lay on its side, still chained to the front staircase.
Her son's daybed was covered in soot. Its mattresses burned, and then dissolved under the gallons of water firemen used to put out the fire.
"I just got it for him," Walker said.
His TV was left blackened and crispy.
Walker's daughter, Tina Ethridge, 27, was staying there a few days with her 6-year-old daughter. The air conditioning in her new trailer home in Sunny Ridge wasn't working. She expected it to be fixed Tuesday.
We just moved out," she said. "Some of my clothes were still in there and my daughter's school clothes were in there and my daughter's medicine was in there, too."
Her toys were already in the new trailer.
State Fire Marshal Det. Miles Davis said the fire was, in all likelihood, electrical in nature.
"She said she had electrical problems the night before; the breaker kept tripping," said Davis. "I found some wires that had beading on them, which is consistent with an electrical fire."
The aging trailer home had the old type wiring with a cloth-like covering, he said.
City of Avon Park firefighters arrived on scene at about 9 a.m. Tuesday, to find the trailer home fully involved, said Interim Chief – Capt. Steve Marquart, who was at the fire scene.
"We saw the smoke when we pulled out of the station," he said.
Luckily, there were still three firefighters from the previous shift to help the three on duty. Two engines responded, but it was too late to save the trailer.
However, they were able to avert a much larger fire and possible explosion from a two-thirds full propane tank in the back of the home.
"We turned off the propane when we got here," Marquart said. "The tank never had any flames impinge on it, so that wasn't a problem."
Volunteers with the American Red Cross supplied Walker with a voucher for a local hotel and vouchers to help pay for her immediate needs of food and clothing. They also supplied her with referrals to other agencies and with kits containing some personal hygiene items.
Anyone wishing to help the Walker family can call Ethridge at 863-453-3317.
Joe Seelig can be reached at (863) 386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com
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