A Thursday morning fire destroyed a mobile home in New Hope after burning for an hour before the arrival of a fire truck.
The fire, which started at approximately 9:05 a.m., was hard to fully extinguish because of the summer heat and lack of volunteer responders, said Lowndes County Fire Coordinator Sammy Fondren. The home, located at 804 Crowe Road, was owned by Leon and Ethel Harris, who were not injured in the fire.
“The fire caused a total loss of the mobile home,” Fondren said. “It did not burn to the ground, but it is not livable. The occupant stated he was in one room and noticed a haze around the ceiling. The fire started in the corner of an adjacent bedroom.”
Fondren said the fire is not under investigation and arson is not suspected.
The District 3 fire was called in over the scanner at around 9:05 a.m. But a call for a tanker truck had not been answered by around 10 a.m. The City of Columbus responded with a mutual aid truck sometime after 10 a.m. The fire was battled by volunteer firefighters until the city truck arrived.
“The thing with this fire is that the volunteers were just not available,” said Fondren. “District 3 is usually quick to respond. We called the city for some mutual aid. The fire was exhausting on the firefighters — they give out relatively quick when it’s almost 100 degrees outside. They got the fire contained but the design of the roof created some heat pockets that kept the firefighters busy. The guys from the city did a great job. We appreciate their help.”
The long response time to Thursday’s fire has some supervisors calling for a re-tooling of the county’s fire services.
“I think we need to form a committee and look at our county fire services,” District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said. “It is very difficult with a total volunteer fire service. These are people that have jobs and sometimes it is very difficult for them to leave work when there is a fire. Maybe we could hire a few full time responders. We just need to create a comprehensive plan and examine the whole thing.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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