By Billy Davis
An early-morning house fire Saturday gutted a brick home at 137 Trianon Street in Batesville.
Homeowner Tammy Barger was not home when the fire began, which likely spared her life, neighbors said.

“The flames were high,” said next-door neighbor Virginia “Kirk” Hogan, high enough to wake up Hogan whose bedroom at 135 Trianon faces her neighbor’s home.

“I knew it was too soon to be that much light outside,” Hogan recalled. “When I looked out the window, the house was in flames.”  

The Barger home “was fully involved when we pulled up,” said Batesville firefighter Brett Childs. “There just wasn’t much we could save.”

Hogan, who dialed 911, recalled that firefighters and police officers responded quickly to the scene. But the house was engulfed when they arrived, she said.
Childs said the cause of the fire is unknown. A fire investigation had not been conducted by press time Monday.

Barger lived alone in the home, which had belonged to her late parents.

Barger told The Panolian she was grateful that, after firefighters got the fire under control, they went into the home to retrieve keepsakes, including family photos and a Bible.

“They brought out some of my mother’s china and stacked it up as neatly as they could,” she recalled.

Firefighters also located one of two cats that perished in the home, which Barger has since buried.

The homeowner also said Batesville insurer Ray Poole was helping her prepare a claim just hours after the house fire.  

Hogan said she was relieved when she learned her neighbor had kept homeowner’s insurance on the home.

In other fire-related news, Childs reported an automobile was set on fire Saturday night and a second automobile was set ablaze Sunday night. No one was injured.

Both fires occurred in west Batesville. The first automobile was at West Side Laundry on Patton Lane. The second fire was set at a residence on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Childs said the fire department and Batesville police are investigating the fires.