A string of fires destroyed three mobile homes in the past several weeks and left residents without their homes, possessions and in one case, their pets.
On Jan. 4 a trailer in the Eagle's Nest Trailer Park caught fire around 4:00 a.m. A next-door neighbor called the Haines Volunteer Fire Department, which arrived shortly after and extinguished the flames. The occupants, Gina Randles, Cody Hotch and their daughter Grace, weren't home at the time, but lost nearly everything in the blaze.
Upon arriving to the fire, a firefighter was able to free Randles' dog, Archer, that was on a lead outside and was trapped and being burned. Randles, who had recently moved into an apartment with her daughter, got a call from the neighbor, whose home was also damaged by the fire. Randles said a volunteer firefighter told her the dog ran away once it was freed. "I left the fire site and immediately got my family and friends out looking for Archer," Randles said. "It took us a little over six hours and roughly seven miles of hiking before I found him."