Single mother, boy homeless
Firefighters search through the destroyed trailer home for salvageable items.
The firefighters were able to save the photo albums and the picture of her daughter Jaylee, who died a few years ago. But the clothes, her son's toys, the rest of the rented trailer house — nothing was salvageable.
Phylicia Toren, 23, and her son Jace, 5, escaped unscathed from a fire that consumed their South Hilltop Road home Tuesday night.
Toren and her son were in the living room after arriving home an hour before. Toren had started the washer and dryer. She got up, walked down the hall to check on the laundry and saw that her bedroom was consumed by flames. She tried to beat the fire down but was unable to. She grabbed Jace and ran outside, screaming.
Neighbors called 911 at 7:37 p.m. Columbia Falls Fire Department and Three Rivers EMS responded at 7:47 p.m. and the fire was suppressed by 7:56 p.m.
Fire Chief Rick Hagen said the fire started in the laundry/ bathroom.
"We're suspecting the dryer," he said. "We couldn't determine if there were any working smoke detectors in the house. That's pretty disturbing, especially with a trailer house."
"How can anyone have such bad luck?" Toren said.
"(Hagen) has been making the firemen go in there and try to salvage (Jace's' toys."
She stood in the front yard of the destroyed home surrounded by family members and friends in a pair of borrowed shoes. Firefighters stripped the siding from the trailer, looking for what caused the burn. Toren said she did not have renters' insurance and the landlord had not insured the house.
"(The firefighters' said if my son had been in the bedroom, we wouldn't have made it."
Hagen said half of the trailer was destroyed by fire and the rest suffered significant smoke damage.
In 2007, Toren's daughter Jaylee died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Her photo lay on the back seat of an SUV. March 9, Toren's car was struck by another and totaled. Toren was injured in the accident and has not been able to return to work at Glacier Park Inc. since. Toren is finalizing her divorce next week.
Female relatives offered condolences. Bad luck comes in threes. The string of bad luck must be over, they said.
The American Red Cross put Toren and her son in a hotel for the night.