Victim Is Thought

To Be A Woman;

Early A.M. Blaze

On Hartman Lane

BY BILL JONES
STAFF WRITER

At least one person died early today when fire destroyed a mobile home at 583 Hartman Lane.

Tracy Lane, a Greene County-Greeneville Emergency Medical Services supervisor, said from the scene about 6:40 a.m. that volunteer firefighters who responded to a fire in a single-wide mobile home about 4 a.m. had found one body in the ruins.

He noted that the body, which was believed to be that of a woman, would be sent to the Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City for an autopsy.

Firefighters from the DeBusk and Orebank VFDs were still searching through the smoldering debris at 6:30 a.m. to ensure that there were no other bodies inside.

The name of the person whose body had been recovered was not being released pending notification of relatives, Lane said.

An investigation of the fatal fire by the Greene County Sheriff's Department was continuing this morning.

Regie Jones, chief of the DeBusk VFD, said his department responded along with the Orebank VFD about 4 a.m.

DeBusk sent 10 firefighters and two trucks, while Orebank sent eight firefighters and four trucks to the scene.

"It was a single-wide mobile home and it was fully engulfed in flames on our arrival," Chief Jones said.

He noted that Greene County 911 had told firefighters while they were en route to the scene that one person was believed to reside in the mobile home.

Although there were no vehicles parked outside the mobile home when firefighters arrived, they subsequently found a body inside the ruins.

The fire, he said, appeared to have begun in the kitchen/living room area of the mobile home. The victim's body was located in that same area of the mobile home, Chief Jones said.

"We're guessing that she was probably sleeping on a couch," he added. "We were able to rescue two cats and a dog that was tied to the end of the mobile home."

He noted that the cats appeared to be medically okay but that the dog appeared to have suffered some burns.

Also responding to the scene were the Greene County Sheriff's Department, Greeneville Light & Power, Greene County-Greeneville Emergency Medical Services and the Greene County Chapter of the American Red Cross.