Tot burned in Hungry Horse fire

A 2-year-old boy was badly burned in a fire that destroyed a mobile home Friday evening in Hungry Horse.

Authorities suspect another boy started the fire by playing with a cigarette lighter.

The boy and his grandmother were transported to Kalispell Regional Medical Center. The boy later was flown to a burn center in Seattle, according to Mike Spencer, a volunteer firefighter with Martin City Fire Department who was first on the scene.

Spencer lives next door to the burned-out home at 595 First St.

Spencer’s fiancee, Debra Johnson, went outside to get their children for dinner when she noticed a black column of smoke rising from the home next door.

She called for Spencer.

“I went over and made them get out,” Spencer said, noting a man was trying to put the fire out by putting snow on a children’s sled and putting it on the fire. “There was nothing that could’ve been done” at that point, Spencer said. The porch was fully engulfed in flames when he arrived.

At least six people came out of the home, but there could have been a couple more, Spencer and Johnson said.

“The one little boy was burnt pretty bad,” Johnson said. “His boots were melted to his feet. His lips were bleeding.” The boy had burns on his face, chest, hands and legs, she said. “His hair was singed.”

The other little boy, a 3-year-old, was shaken up, but fine. “I gave him a piece of pizza and a juice,” Johnson said.

She gave blankets to the boys and the grandmother. She also gave a pair of her shoes to a teenage girl.

Spencer said he and several other people used a broken ladder to help the grandmother over a fence that separated the two homes.

The woman then had a seizure in Spencer’s driveway.

“We got her some oxygen, then Martin City showed up with Engine No. 1,” he said. Hungry Horse and Coram/West Glacier fire departments also responded to the fire.

The trailer was gone within five minutes, Spencer said, noting the family got out just in time.

“They were pretty lucky to make it out of the trailer,” said Walter Tabb, the Coram/West Glacier fire chief. One of the boys apparently was playing with cigarette lighter and caught the other one on fire, Tabb said. The fire went up the wall and across the ceiling. There was a gasoline container inside the trailer too, he said.

The family members are staying at a motel, Johnson said. The Red Cross helped with that effort.

Spencer has been a firefighter for only three months but has worked for search and rescue departments in DeBorgia, Mont. and Shoshone County, Idaho. “It was my first fire,” he said. “It really bothers me that it was my neighbor’s place. It kind of hits home.”

Rescues must be in the family’s blood. Spencer’s six-year-old stepson Kyle called him last month on his mother’s cell phone after his mother lost consciousness while behind the wheel of a vehicle. Johnson parked in front of the Hungry Horse Fire Department.

Spencer found her and called an ambulance. She was taken to the hospital, where a doctor said she had been dehydrated.

 Johnson, a Flathead County native who returned home with Spencer about three months ago after living in Idaho, said they teach the children how to react in a number of emergencies.

“We’re always talking about it, what to do in this situation or that situation,” she said last month. “It’s kind of an everyday thing. ... You never know when something could happen.”

Reporter Caleb Soptelean may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at csoptelean@dailyinterlake.com.