Fire destroys home in Crook County’s Juniper Acres

Published 5:54 pm Wednesday, May 7, 2008

A fire destroyed a mobile home this morning in Juniper Acres, a rural, off-the-grid subdivision that does not have fire protection.

No one was injured.

Crook County Undersheriff Jim Hensley said officials were notified around 11:30 a.m. about a fire in a single-wide mobile home on Oak Street in the subdivision that is nine miles east of Alfalfa and 25 miles south of Prineville.

He said the home’s owner was away when the fire started, which officials believe was sometime after 9:40 a.m.

Juniper Acres is not within any rural fire district or protected by the Bureau of Land Management. Hensley said about six neighbors used hoses and buckets to put out the fire. Wind spread the flames to several juniper trees within 100 yards of the mobile home. Hensley said neighbors cut them down to stop the fire. He said the blaze was nearly out when the first deputies arrived on the scene around 12:15 p.m.

Hensley said there has not yet been an investigation into the fire, but he believes it was started after portable heaters inside the mobile home ignited.