Steamboat Pilot & Today

Oak Creek — A mobile home in Oak Creek went up in flames Tuesday night, destroying nearly all of a family’s belongings as they prepared to permanently settle into the home after Christmas. No one was injured in the blaze.

The flames from the fire at mobile home No. 2 in the 400 block of Willow Bend spread from the base of the mobile home up and around the structure Tuesday night as Amber Chandler and Kyle Bolton looked on helplessly. The couple had moved everything they own, except their clothes, into the trailer in the past few days.

Bolton said his mother, Lauretta Martinez, owns the trailer and had everything she owned in the trailer, too.

Oak Creek Police Depart­ment Officer Lance Dunaway said Martinez’s boyfriend, Steve Oneal, is thought to have started the fire when he tried to unfreeze the pipes under the home with a hand-held propane torch.

Oak Creek Fire Protection District emergency responders were dispatched at about 6:45 p.m. Tuesday. There was nobody in the trailer at the time of the fire.

Bolton said the family had no insurance on the trailer, and Oak Creek Fire Protection District Chief Chuck Wisecup said the mobile home was probably a total loss.

After the initial fire was contained, Wisecup said firefighters found weak spots in the floor and planned to re-enter the home to check for fires in the walls.

Chandler, 23, said she and Bolton, 17, and a student at the Yampa Valley School, have nothing left except for the clothes they kept at her mother’s house. She said donations would be appreciated and can be made by calling Chandler or Bolton at 970-736-1147.