Fire burns trailer to the ground in Pearson

PEARSON — At dawn Friday morning, a woman and her infant grandson woke to a fire consuming their trailer and narrowly escaped with their lives.

Verna Walker said she was asleep around 4:30 a.m. when a loud noise jarred her from her awake.

“I think the furnace blew up, because all I heard was a huge bang,” Walker said. “I grabbed the baby, but the door was on fire — I couldn’t get out the door — so we had to jump out a window.”

Elcho Assistant Fire Chief Geoff Kupfer said his department was paged to the fire by the Pickerel Volunteer Fire Department.

“It was a Pickerel call and Pickerel jurisdiction. They paged out Town of Langlade as mutual aid to respond, and we were the other ones,” Kupfer said. “By the time Elcho arrived, everything was laying on the ground. The remains of what was standing were in flames.”

Pickerel Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ted Jacobsen said he does not know how the fire began. Despite her initial feelings that the fire’s source was the furnace, Walker is also unsure.

“I just had the furnace tank filled up yesterday. And the furnace wasn’t running. I just assumed it was the furnace, but my nephew said it could have been anything — combustion or something like that. I don’t know. We’ll find out once the fire marshal comes,” Walker said. “So I don’t know. But we got out, so that’s all that mattered.”

Walker spoke around 6 p.m. Friday night in front of the structure’s ashes — a small flame still quietly burning in its center. The bombed-out skeleton of an SUV that had been in close proximity to the trailer stood beside the taped off rubble.

One side of another vehicle, as well as surrounding treetops, were scorched. Walker said the automobiles were fully insured, but the trailer was not insured at all. There may be other losses as well.

“It’s my mother and father’s house, so I’ve been here for years. I just started remodeling it, and I had it all done except for the kitchen,” Walker said. “One dog got out, but I don’t think the other one did. I can’t find her.”

Two of Walker’s family members comforted her in the driveway. The grandson whose life she’d saved was sitting in a vehicle there, smiling at them all through the window.

“I haven’t even thought about it,” Walker said when asked what she would do now. “I have a lot of good friends and family that are helping, so I’ll be OK. But it’s a big loss. It’s amazing how fast things can just change.”