Fire leaves 10 families homeless, questions burning

A fire that swept through a trailer park on Highway 99W over the weekend has left 10 families frightened, frustrated, angry – and homeless.

“Something really bad happened here,” said Luis Mendoza, 27, who’s two uncles lost their homes in the fire that started sometime before 11:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Friendly Acres mobile home park, 12055 Highway 99W.

Theresa Amezcua, who lives in the park with her husband and children, said she and her 11-year-old daughter, Jasmine, were walking in the park when they noticed flames inside a trailer about five doors east of their home.

“We rushed back to our home and my daughter called 911,” Amezcua said through an interpreter Monday. “The (operator) told my daughter to get an adult, but she told (the operator) she couldn’t because I don’t speak English. She told them a trailer was on fire, but they said to call back if it got bigger and hung-up.”

She said it was about 30 minutes later that the fire engines arrived, but already three trailers were on fire.

Shane Kelley, 38, who lived next door to the trailer that first caught fire, said he looked out his kitchen window and saw flames in his neighbor’s trailer.

“I ran outside started yelling, ‘fire, fire,’ and went to a water hose to try and stop it. There was no water pressure in any of the hoses,” Kelley said. “The other people around me tried to use their water hoses and none of them worked.”

He said when the fire engines arrived, his house had already caught on fire and he was attempting to run back inside to rescue his dogs.

“Someone told me to stay away from my home or I would be arrested, but I couldn’t just leave my dogs,” said Kelley, who lived in his home with his wife, Lori, and 9-year-old daughter. “I don’t care what they said, I saved my dogs.”

According to Kelley, each of the destroyed homes had a family living in it.

“If help had come when that little girl first called this wouldn’t have been so bad,” he said. “This is just wrong.”

Attempts to confirm the emergency call, and to determine which dispatch center may have received were unsuccessful Monday.

Manuel Lopez, 34, also lost his home where he lived with his wife.

“I had bought my trailer and we had lived there for seven years,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do.”

Cal Fire officials said they received a report of the fire at 11:51 a.m. and arrived at 11:56 a.m.

Capt. Steve Estes said he didn’t know anything about Amezcua’s claim of the 911 hang-up.

Nine fire engines, five water tenders, a rescue squad, and a support vehicle from Cal Fire and Tehama County fire departments responded, along with two fire engines from the Red Bluff Fire Department.

Cal Fire said along with the homes, numerous vehicles and a garage were totally burned and one home was damaged.

No one was injured, fire officials said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, said Cal Fire.

Charles McCaul of the Red Cross said a team from Redding responded to the disaster, and along with the short-term motel stays, the families have been provided personal hygiene items and each head-of-household was given a credit card to purchase emergency needs.

By Monday afternoon, individuals and groups had already been coming into the park with donations of clothes, blankets and other emergency need items.

One of those was Kirk Hall.

“Myself and friends have been gathering clothes for these poor people and I just dropped them off. We’ll be coming back with more,” he said.