Early Morning Fire Flattens Multiple Structures and Trailers in Phillipsville
Fire destroyed a trailer in Phillipsville this morning. [All photos by Joe Rial]
The flames crept into the vegetation around the property but, firefighters squelched any attempts to spread to further areas.
According to resident Joe Rial, there have been several fires at this property. This morning there were multiple fire departments there. “6 engines and 2 white official trucks and a lot of great heroes who keep coming back to this property,” he told us.
Multiple local fire department were called to the scene including Garberville, Phillipsville, Miranda, and Redway, and Weott. Cal Fire (Garberville and Weott) also responded to the incident. Addresses to send donations to your local fire departments who not only volunteer to fight fires but also have to raise money to keep the fire engines running, are in the comment section.
We’ve requested further information from Cal Fire.
UPDATE 10:15 a.m.: “They extinguished a structure but not before it had spread to three nearby trailers and one outbuilding,” said Fire Captain Specialist Tran Beyea of Cal Fire. “The cause is being investigated.”
Beyea said there were people living in the original structure that had originally caught fire but there was an eviction process underway to remove them from the structure.
“Red Cross came out to address one resident in the adjoining trailer park that lost his place,” he told us. “At least one of the trailers weren’t being inhabited. Maybe two.”
He explained that this site has had multiple fires in structures. “There has been a couple of fires here in the last few years plus a couple of debris burns,” he noted. “I don’t have an idea right now of how many though.”
He asked that the community please be patient and careful. “Rain is coming but the burn ban is still in effect,” he told us. “Please abide by that as fuel conditions are still dry. Cal Fire will send out an announcement when we lift the ban.”
Please note: An earlier version of this story did not cover the extent of the destruction.
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How many of dotty’s properties have to burn down before the county will step in and deal with her like the slum lord she is??
I believe this started on another property.
All of those properties belong to her, and if they were on another property, it was an illegal overflow of space that was from dotties property.. please correct me if I’m wrong.
My understanding is it belonged to another neighbor. I have not tracked deeds to property though.
So very sorry for the folks that lost their homes and other structures in that fire. I don’t know who is the landlord, but it looks like to me that something needs to be done to stop the frequent fires. Hope there were no injures. Thank you to all the local fire departments for their never ending fantastic hard work. Please send a donation to your local fire department so they can remain ready with all the needed equipment. Without your bucks it is next to impossible for them to survive, and you if help is needed!
The Deerhorn Trailer park needs to be condemned. The Fire Marshall needs to go through that place with a fine tooth comb. How much government money gets flushed down that shit hole toilet? Somebody better do something before someone else suffers fatal burns in a trailer with no way out, like Coffee Jim did.
No fuel, no fire.
No fuel, no heat, no oxygen = No fire.
Just like medical problems, there is a “Golden Hour”. Any emergency requires a quick response.
I don’t see much hope for the future. Crimes happen with impunity. Murder needs a quick response if they are going to catch anybody, not wait to investigate for a week, while the perpetrator leaves the country. If something gets stolen you call the law and they send you a form to fill out for your insurance company. Shoplifting is not even a crime anymore. Only if they steal over $950.00 or whatever.
If inflation doesn’t eat us alive China will. Transportation is so screwed up that there are over a million cargo containers that are waiting to be unloaded while our transportation secretary is on “Paternity leave”. Our border czar is also AOL.
Slums and homeless everywhere. Maybe a trailer in Deerhorn Park is better than living in the wild.
I need cheering up, is anybody out there optimistic?
Hang in there, Ernie – you’ve been here next to forever, so you know “this too shall pass”.
Me, not so long, but long enough to have similar concerns. But I’ve seen enough to know we share these problems with the rest of the world. That doesn’t make things easier I know (misery loves company?), but it’s nice to hear from community members like you anyway.
I think a change is coming – when people realize we really have to work together to survive, it’ll happen.
So there’s my woo-woo moment for you…take care.
Moo Cow
Thanks for the woo-woo. You are right about me being here next to forever. In the past I have seen great tragedies or need pull us all together. One would think that the fight against Covid would have bonded us against a common enemy, but even that has divided us.
Hang in there Ernie because the pendulum swings both ways. I’ll admit it’s hard to be optimistic now but I believe American’s are hurting and beginning to wake up to the insanity of this feckless and pandering Administration, what it actually stands for and how it’s deliberately derailing our nation’s economy, energy independence, border security, foreign relations and national security. The only thing Biden has Built Back Better is Afghanistan… Slums full of vagrants are most common in California because our liberal politicians refuse to enforce our laws that are designed to protect us. Then partisan political hacks are re-elected time, after time leading our state to the moral and ethical bottom. California’s school system is ranked 9th worst in the nation. We’re a magnet for drug addicts, drunks and derelicts seeking a state that divvies out the most benefits and freebies. The pendulum swung to the left 40 years ago in California and we’re paying the price now. Crime is out of control, police departments defunded, high taxes and benefits for illegal aliens that invade our border. A man can even use a girls restroom and hopefully not molest your little girl in the process. How sick is that? Hopefully, Californian’s will have had enough of this abuse and chaos by 2022, look for a change in party affiliation and begin to repair this Golden State. And who knows, Pete Buttigieg may have returned from his paternal leave by then…
Hey. We got .87″rain yesterday. That sure makes me smile
That made me smile!
What Martin said.
Garberville fire was not called
You are right. I went back and listened to the scanner again. The dispatcher actually called for Cal Fire Garberville but it was garbled and I didn’t catch the “Cal Fire” the first time. I’ll fix that.
A truly misfit community in a once pristine place.
BBQ in a trailer again?
What? That’s not normal?
Dottie has has done nothing but brought blight to SoHum. She is an absolute slum lord. When we moved to SoHum in the early 90’s Phillipsville was a decent community. Hopefully Code Enforcement will be on this immediately to force her to clean up! They should also hammer those places on the south end of the loop adjacent to the river. What a freaking mess!
Early 90’s didn’t have this major homelessness. Hovels look like habitat when you don’t got none. Poverty row over at the Deerhorn. Best to spend dollars on upkeep not drugs.
Her properties need to be condemned. Raw sewage leaks, electrical and gas line disasters, leaky rotten crap. She’s peddling death traps, as well as expired food at the market!
Trailer parks are inspected by the state- not by county code enforcement. The state has delayed all inspections because of Covid.
The county actually would do well to build new trailer parks for low income housing. If the trailers are on foundations then the inspections and jurisdiction are with the county.
New trailers, even single wides, are built better now and look like small houses. It’s far cheaper to build than the low income housing the county builds now in very limited amounts. If a park is planned well with decently sized yards it gives pride of ownership and things are better taken care of. New parks would = new infrastructure and safer conditions. Unsafe parks would have much more pressure to maintain infrastructure because of competition.
There are places where small homes are built on common land like a park and sold as condominiums as well- cheaper to build and look a lot nicer. Florida has quite few. HOAs in those parks can be as low as $450 a year once the house is paid for.
Not all low income housing has to be $3.5 million for 1500 sq ft. or whatever. Some low income housing can support itself with rents.
[edit]
this is not realistic for folks who are barely keeping themselves housed
More parks are realistic. Those trailers are privately owned. Most are not owned by the park AFAIK. PLUS all pay rent.
Low income housing does not mean people do not pay rent.
The county should build some parks with placed trailers to rent out. And others without placed trailers would be nice for those who want to own their own trailers.
Much less expensive than any plan they might currently have for low income housing. It could pay for itself and as it would not be taxed it could produce income for the county.
Trailer parks were originally marketed as tiny house communities in response to an economic environment where housing was unaffordable to many.
The other idea- condominiums, would help workers trying to relocate to Humboldt county but unable to find housing.
Sheila – Code Enforcement has been hard at work on those properties. You can ck with the County for updates, or you can see for yourself, by driving down on that road.
I don’t know Dotty, nor was I around in the 90s, but in my opinion, the County &/or State, should try to partner with Dotty, to improve the conditions on her trailer park. She seems, to be providing housing to people that would likely be homeless without her park.
If the trailer park is shutdown, where are the residents going to go? Garberville Plaza? Redway Supermarket parking lot? The forest to cause forest fires?
Like it or not, Dotty’s eyesore is providing housing relief. The Government should step in to help her with improvements.
It’s true! She helps
She’s charging $1200 for a dump that is so unsafe the gas can’t even be hooked up…and there’s raw sewage flooding the yard! How is that helping?
People on fixed incomes, many elderly and disabled, often getting just shy of $1,000 a month. ‘Substandard Housing’ is all they can afford. The waiting list for Cedar St. Senior Apartments is now years long. The answer is, obviously affordable housing, not just here, everywhere. Unfortunately every measure to help those not already obscenely rich is labeled, ‘socialism’ or, ‘creating an entitlement society’, or ‘lulling in a hammock of dependency’. While money doesn’t talk it swears.
Dotty, has invested her own inheritance into our community because she cares. The previous owner, Richard Head made that place the meth dump it has become. He inflated electrical meter prices if someone complained and turned off their power. He traded food stamps for 50% of value in the store. The county did nothing, because his father was politically well connected in Eureka. Dotty has been fined and harassed by the County for taking folks off the streets at great cost to her well being both mentally and financially. The number of homeless are only going to keep growing. Wildland fires have taken the housing of many and now that the moratorium on evictions is lifted the numbers will skyrocket. If you never been a landlord, or you never been homeless, you cannot begin to understand their dilemma. The funding for HUD programs dried up under Trump’s rule, and Congress cannot get Biden’s build back better plan passed which would free up more funding.
Once again, I can only add that until we all get over the idea that “deserving” is tied to housing, we will continue to have more and more unhoused persons everywhere, and all the public safety and public health problems for the entire region that go with that. The root cause of all this is lack of safe, decent, affordable housing accessible to all. Some people, of course, will still prefer living away from society — but for the most part, these problems will improve. And the second tough necessity is that every community, rich and poor, needs to have its share of truly affordable housing. Someone recently pointed out that when the house next door catches on fire it doesn’t matter if the cause was a lightning strike, bad wiring, someone smoking in bed, or a meth lab — you want the fire dept to come and put it out before it reaches your house. Let’s think of basic housing for all the same way.
There is a big difference between affordable housing and affordable homes.
Collapse is happening, it’s just not evenly distributed.
Hi my name is Anthony Steele I was here the day the trailers burned I also got photos and video of it as well it was pretty bad Dorothy Russell is a nasty and bitter woman here is videos of the fires and photos of the aftermath we are still investigating it to the better end and in truth tailing nobody should ever live in this trailer park for there is so many thieves that there is no way that it is safe for children to walk around we have gunfire every night and it I get punished for their doing unforgivable it is she doesn’t want these photos to go out here is the videos and photos together if I can upload the video itself