Fire destroys second home near Mancos

Fire destroys second home near Mancos

Jan. 8, 2001

By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor

For 11 hours Friday night, in temperatures of zero or below, firefighters from Mancos, Dolores and Cortez battled a fire that, in the end, destroyed a family home on County Road 39 alleged to date back over a hundred years.

The Mark Martinez family’s personal possessions and household goods were nearly all burned in the blaze. Nobody in the family or among the firefighters was injured.

It was the second home destroyed by fire in a week in the Mancos area. On Wednesday, a blaze possibly caused by hot ashes in a garage swept through the home of Monroe and Tonya Grewe at 38460 Highway 184.

According to Mancos Fire Capt. Blake Mitchell, before Mark (owner of Martinez Trucking), his wife Stephanie (Mancos High School secretary) and their daughter Tara left for a family dinner in Durango Friday evening, they closed the steel doors and shut down the fireplace in the kitchen/family room. Son Levi, a mid-year graduate of Mancos High, was with friends, and daughter Jade was babysitting her cousins at the Marcus Colbert residence nearby.

Sometime after the family’s departure around 6 p.m., Mitchell figures a backdraft caused the gases accumulating in the dampered stove to ignite, blowing the fireplace doors open and sending embers into the room.

When Laurie Colbert brought Jade home from babysittting at 10 p.m., she said smoke was pouring out of the house and the doorknob was hot. Colbert immediately called 911.

In addition to two engines, a tanker, a crash truck and an ambulance from Mancos, two tankers and firefighters came from Cortez, while one tanker and personnel drove over from Dolores.

The extreme cold made firefighting extremely hazardous and exhausting, officials said. Neighbor Tom Colbert, father of Stephanie Martinez, said his thermometer stood at zero as the fire was raging. Firefighters were covered with ice, having to raise their helmet visors to see while using chainsaws.

In addition, the two-story frame house with a steep metal roof, said by Tom Colbert to be at least 107 years old, had gone through many changes in its history. At its heart, said Mark Martinez, was a structure of hand-hewn timbers with square nails. Those timbers held up the upper story so long, preventing direct attack on the fire upstairs, that the firefighters "had to burn it down to put it out," as Martinez put it.

The remodeling also left numerous nooks and crannies where the fire could hide. Rookie (and former chief) Lyle Cox said it was one of the most frustrating house fires he had ever been on because they just had to keep searching for the fire.

Even after the night-long battle, Mitchell said the Mancos firefighters had to go back twice on Saturday to knock down flare-ups. The suppression efforts Friday night were successful in preventing any of the nearby outbuildings from being damaged or destroyed.

The family’s personal possessions have been almost totally lost. Even the clothes that appeared to be only smoke-blackened fell apart in the washing machine, Mark Martinez said.

"The outpouring (of help) has been great," Martinez said, and has included four offers of a place to live while settling the insurance and rebuilding.

Virginia Colbert, Stephanie Martinez’s mother, said the family probably has enough clothes now to get by. Food and money have been donated and a benefit is being planned to help replace appliances and other household goods after the family has had time to assess the loss and plan their next move.

All of the family expressed extreme gratitude at the quick and prolonged effort by the firefighters and for the helping hands that have been extended from the community.