Family of 7 homeless after house fire

Published 7:22 pm Thursday, October 5, 2017

A late morning fire engulfed and destroyed a wood frame home on Box L Ranch Road in Warren County Thursday, leaving a couple and their five children homeless.

No one was injured in the fire at 4824 Box L Ranch Road, a narrow gravel road off Gibson Road. The cause is undetermined, Warren County fire coordinator Jerry Briggs said. No one was home at the time of the fire.

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“We’ve lived there six years,” Ashley Baker said as she watched firefighters extinguish hot spots in her home.

While they had insurance on items sitting outside and around the house, she said, they did not have insurance on the house.

“We’ll figure out something,” she said.

The fire occurred about 11:29 a.m.

Sheriff’s deputy Connie Ricketts, who was the first person to arrive at the scene, said the fire was called in by a relative living near the home who saw it as she was leaving to go shopping.

“The call at first came in as a grass fire,” Ricketts said. “When I arrived, the house was fully involved.”

Briggs said firefighters from the Culkin and Fisher Ferry Volunteer Fire departments worked to extinguish the fire and protect items near the house from being burned.  “We had two firefighters who were overcome by the heat and had to be taken care of by paramedics from the Vicksburg Fire Department,” he said.

He said a tanker provided by the Bovina Volunteer Fire Department was used to shuttle water from fire hydrants in the area, adding the closest hydrant to the fire did not work and the tanker had to find another hydrant to get water.

“That and the narrow road made it difficult,” he said.

About John Surratt

John Surratt is a graduate of Louisiana State University with a degree in general studies. He has worked as an editor, reporter and photographer for newspapers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post staff since 2011 and covers city government. He and his wife attend St. Paul Catholic Church and he is a member of the Port City Kiwanis Club.

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