Brunswick, GA – By Marcus E. Howard, The Brunswick News
They thought they had beaten a fire, but the occupants of a Brunswick mobile home destroyed Wednesday now find themselves homeless.
Richard Brown, 44, and his girlfriend, Tyisha Green, 25, were in their mobile home on the corner of Magnolia and Cedar streets with Green’s stepfather, Wesley Ward, 73, when a fire broke out as a result of gas leaking from a small heater attached to a propane tank.
Brown said he was lying in bed some time around 9:30 a.m. when he heard a loud explosion that sounded like a bomb going off in his living room.
“It went ‘Boom!’ and I jumped up out of the bed, and I was like, ‘What is going on,'” Brown said.
The blast knocked Ward, who Brown said had connected the heater to the propane tank, to the floor. Ward suffered minor burns to his face and arm from the explosion.
The three occupants of the rented mobile home, located in Brunswick Mobile Home Park, threw water on the fire, which they said consumed two couches and shattered a window. Thinking they had successfully extinguished the fire, they decided to leave.
But minutes later, the Glynn County Fire Department responded to a call that another fire had broken out at the trailer.
According to the county fire department, firefighters were able to bring the fire under control in about 10 minutes. The department believes the previous fire may not have been completely put out.
Fire department Capt. Jerome Johnson estimates the fire caused $7,500 in damage to the mobile home. Half of the mobile home has been ripped away and the interior is charred throughout.