‘It just. . . is gone. Burned to the ground.’ Family loses home in Putnam fire

PUTNAM, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – A fire south of Putnam burned several acres, vehicles, and a two story family home Monday.

The fire occurred just before lunch after a former resident discovered smoke rising from the location when she was going to check on her property located five miles south of Putnam along County Road 423.

“She drove down the gate and she smelled smoke, so she drove up here on top where she could see, and she’s seeing more smoke,  and that’s when she called the fire department,” said her husband Mitchell O’Dell.

The O’Dells now live in Cross Plains, so no one was residing in the home at the time of the fire, but the O’Dells still own the property and say that many precious memories were made there because it was where they raised their children.

“12 years we raised them there. You know, they started college and moved away, and we moved to Cross Plains,” O’Dell recalls. “So, yeah, we still had the house fully furnished and stocked with their things in it and everything. It just. . . is gone. Burned to the ground.”

Over a half a dozen fire departments responded to the “Fence Line” fire, so-named by the Texas A&M Forest Service. The responders included both regular and volunteer fire departments.

Chief Deputy for the Callahan County Sheriff’s Office Chad Campbell says a large part of the County provided aide, including “everything from the eastern end of my county, which is Cross Plains, Cottonwood, Putnam, Baird and Cisco, and then the four services in route.”

The Texas A&M Forest Service has logged that roughly 60 acres were consumed in the blaze. No one was injured in this fire.

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