Updated at 12:09 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
A Randle man was airlifted to a Portland hospital’s burn center after a fire consumed his home on the 100 block of Morris Road, just east of town last night.
It was an older single-wide mobile home with an addition built on to it, according to Lewis County Fire District 18 Chief Ed Lowe.
“It was fully engulfed in flames when we got there, and we went into defensive mode,” Lowe said.
Next door neighbor Linda Mullins said she was working at her computer when she heard Charles Baker outside cussing and hollering for someone to get a hose and help him. He was getting water in a bucket and went back inside his burning home, she said.
Smoke was billowing from the eaves and flames showing at one end, she said.
“We were standing outside screaming at him, get out, get out,” she said. “It took him awhile, we thought he was dead.”
Baker, 55, was burned mostly on his arms and legs, his hair was singed, Mullins said.
He was transported to Morton General Hospital, and then because of the weather, taken to a helicopter landing zone at Mossyrock High School and flown to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland.
Lewis County Fire District 14 Chief Jeff Jaques was told this morning Baker’s condition was serious but probably not life threatening. A hospital spokesperson however described Baker’s status as critical.
Baker lives there by himself.
The call came at 6:25 p.m. Fifteen members of the two fire departments – from Randle and Glenoma – battled the blaze, knocking it down by about 8 p.m., according to Lowe.
Mullins said after someone from the fire department got on scene, she grabbed her teenage son, her dog and two other neighbors and drove out of the tree-filled cove where three homes sit. She watched one tree go up in flames.
“I was afraid I was going to lose my house and everything,” she said.
All that remains of the 1977 mobile home is basically the floor and foundation, with a pile of burned material on top, Jaques said.
“Typically with these older mobile homes, of that vintage, they go up really fast,” Jaques said.
Lowe said he wasn’t involved in patient care, so he had little information about Baker’s injuries, except he understood he had burns on 20 percent of his body.
Fire investigator Jay Birley went out there last night and will be returning. It’s too early to know what caused the fire, Birley said.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter