A New Hope family escaped with only the clothes on their backs after an early morning fire damaged their rental house and all of their possessions, including the children’s Christmas presents.
Tiffany Davis said she and her two children, Caitlyn Perrigen, 5, and Brandon Perrigen, 8, were sleeping when she awakened to the smell of smoke around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Her husband, Brian Davis, was not home at the time.
“When I got up, I saw smoke and went in there and grabbed my kids real quick and called 911,” Davis said Wednesday morning. “All we had left was the clothes we had on.”
Lowndes County Fire Administrator Sammy Fondren said the house at 3516 Highway 50 East suffered moderate damage, and the cause of the fire is still undetermined. He did not estimate the dollar amount of damages, saying that is left to the insurance company. He said the fire appeared to have started in a closet and might have been electrical in nature.
Davis said she had recently finished her Christmas shopping and the children’s presents were stored in the closet where the fire began.
There is nothing left of the two bedrooms, and the rest of the house has smoke damage, she said, adding that though she had a smoke detector, the alarm did not sound.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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