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Thursday, 08 May 2008 |
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By Richard Toynton SPRINGFIELD — A woman’s dream of owning a home that she and three of her children could live in was ended early Wednesday morning when her home was virtually destroyed by fire.
 Morning News - Richard Toynton
Richard Walker adjusts a garden hose outside of the remains of Jeanette Potts’ home in Springfield that was virtually destroyed by fire at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Police and nine firefighters from the Aberdeen/Springfield Fire District were called to a house fire at 1953 W. 805 S. at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. The home belongs to Jeanette Potts who said that the fire appeared to start in the garage and neighbors said the home burned from the roof downward. The garage at the home was completely destroyed and all but two windows remained unbroken in the home and most of the roof was burned.
No one was in the home as it burned, and a neighbor said firefighters rescued two cats and seven kittens from inside.
Aberdeen/Springfireld Fire District Chief Gary Foster said it took firefighters about an hour to extinguish the flames in the three-bedroom, one-bathroom home and three fire engines and one rescue truck with extraction equipment was on scene. He said firefighters remained at the home for four hours to “clean up” and make sure the fire was completely extinguished.
Foster said firefighters could not determine how the fire started and that no financial estimate of damage was made.
“I worked so hard on it,” Potts said, crying. “I lost a pretty big dream there. I don’t know what I will do.” She’s currently living at her sister’s apartment in Idaho Falls. She has nine kids and planned to have three of them live with her in the Springfield home with custody rights she obtained after separating from her husband seven years ago.
She said she spent all winter in the home remodeling it, and the only thing that it needed was a furnace and her dream of owning her first home on her own would be complete. “I even prepared a garden.”
She said she signed the paperwork to own the home on Sept. 11, 2007 and that her brother helped her greatly in acquiring her first home.
Three cars were burned, one of which was in the garage that was incinerated. One of the vehicles was a pickup truck that Potts said her son was trying to get running before his 18th birthday.
“She was just trying to make it livable,” neighbor Richard Walker said Wednesday afternoon. Walker pushed Potts’ truck away from the home so it wouldn’t burn and also moved her camper trailer away from the heat. Kimberly Walker, Richard Walker’s wife, said, “All we could do was give her coffee.” The Walkers’ mother, Peggy Robertson called 911 after the noise of the fire awoke her.
Margaret and Dennis Hess live directly across the street from where Potts’ garage was, and they said a large explosion that may have been a gasoline tank in a vehicle woke them up. “I was about to have a heart attack,” Dennis Hess said. “I’d die if I lost my house,” Margaret added. They said flames from the home reached about 40 feet into the sky.
Potts said she believes her home may have been intentionally set on fire by someone because no heaters or electricity was on in the garage.
Dennis Hess said his great-grandmother lived in the home many years ago and that she complained of electricity problems in the home that he said was built in the ‘40s.
A Bingham County detective has been assigned to investigate the fire and he or she finds that it was intentionally set, the state fire marshal will be requested to investigate.
Blackfoot Fire Department Capt. Kurt Aikele said the state fire marshal is called when arson is suspected or when a cause of fire cannot be determined.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 May 2008 )
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