SNOHOMISH, Wash. — A fast-moving fire destroyed a mobile home with a family of four inside, and a teenager could not escape.
The fire broke out just before 4:30 a.m. on Sunday at the Three Rivers Mobile Home & RV Park near Snohomish.
A man, his wife, and young son managed to get out. But his teenage daughter did not survive.
The neighbors tried to put out the flames but they were just too intense. The fire jumped to the trailers on either side, and even though a fire station is less than a mile and a half away, the teenage girl could not be saved.
“It got real hot, real fast,” lamented Dalen Thompson. “Within minutes it was just a crisp.”
The first moment that Thompson knew flames were engulfing his neighbor’s home was when he heard his father screaming.
“‘Dalen, Dalen, Dalen!’” he recalled. “So, I looked out my window (and) saw fire all the way up the tree.”
It was just about 4:30 Sunday morning. His dad grabbed a hose to try to put out the torrent of flames. A man, his wife and young son managed to escape.
But, says Sydney Estes, his teenage daughter was trapped inside.
“They didn’t realize she was inside,” said Estes, “(Un)til the dad tried to kick the window out,” said Estes.
“This one affects a lot of us, (be)cause a lot of us have kids this age,” said Peter Mongillo, a spokesman for Snohomish Regional Fire and Rescue.
He said firefighters arrived to a devastating sight.
“By the time crews got here, it was raging out of control,” Mongillo said.
He says they immediately put a lot of water on the fire. Once the fire was under control, they searched for the missing teen.
“That was the sleeping quarters of where she was sleeping,” said Mongillo, pointing to the charred RV. “And you can see that escape place, that window right there, would be a great opportunity to escape. But that fire moved so fast, that toxic smoke and chemicals consumed that area so fast, they may have not enough time to get out of there.”
She did not make it out alive.
“Shocked, distraught,” said Estes, describing the impact on everyone who witnessed the tragedy. “Yeah, the father wasn’t crying. But I knew that he, like, was in shock.”
The fire marshal still has not determined a cause.
But fire officials say this is a good time reminder to make sure you have a working smoke detector and that everyone in your household knows how to get out in case of a fire.
It just might save a life.
©2023 Cox Media Group
