An explosion after midnight Sunday shook the house and awakened Steve and Lisa Harper. When Steve began looking for the cause of the noise, he saw the family's camper and truck ablaze and told Lisa to call 911.
The Harpers and their daughters, Alicia Simpson and Amy Harper, were planning to take a Mother's Day camping trip in the camper.
The 2001 Dodge truck was to have been a first truck for Amy, 15.
"He had just plugged it in and we were cleaning it out," Lisa said. "I did have all my pictures in there. Thankfully, I took them out today."
When Pea Ridge Police officer Eric Lyle arrived on the scene, he saw flames shooting high above the camper and into the nearby tree. A stream of leaking gasoline from the truck was on fire in a stream down the driveway and into the street.
"I ran to wake her," Lisa said, referring to her neighbor, Cynthia Browning, who lives just east of their house. Her house is close to where the truck and camper were parked. "That's right by her bedroom."
The garage behind the truck is full of racing cars and racing fuel, Steve said.
Pea Ridge firefighters worked quickly to connect water hoses to fire hydrants and doused the flames, then continued to work on the truck and camper to be sure every flame was extinguished.
"I wish I'd gotten my blanket out," Alicia said, then consoled herself with "it's just material things." The blanket was one her grandmother had quilted for her, she said.
General News on 04/29/2015