A 92-year-old man was injured when his mobile home at 9631 Meadow Drive in the Hillsboro area caught fire Nov. 29.
The man was attempting to light his pipe when the cigarette lighter he was using caught fire and he dropped it on the carpet, said Darryl Reed, chief of the Mapaville Fire Protection District.
“He said he tried to put it out, but he fell,” Reed said.
The carpet quickly caught on fire in the older double-wide mobile home, he said. “The fire spread through the living room and a little bit into the kitchen.”
Fortunately, the man’s daughter, who had been running a short errand, returned in time to get her father out of the house.
The man seemed to have minor injuries, Reed said.
“He had a couple of minor burns. We sent him to the hospital (Mercy Hospital Jefferson in Crystal City). Joachim-Plattin Ambulance District took him.”
Reed said emergency personnel weighed whether the man needed to go to the hospital, but decided to transport him due to his age, the minor burns and the possibility of smoke inhalation.
“The family didn’t argue with us,” he said.
The Mapaville Fire Protection District was called at 10:58 a.m. and arrived at 11:03 a.m.
Reed said smoke was coming from the mobile home and a neighbor with a garden hose was putting water on the fire when firefighters arrived.
The 92-year-old man was already out of the house.
“It was a pretty good little fire,” Reed said. “The neighbor with the garden hose helped us out a lot. Without him, it would have been a heck of a fire.”
The residents will have to find another place to live, he said.
“The whole living room and some of the kitchen were damaged. Smoke got to the rest of the house,” Reed said.
The cabinets in the kitchen were plastic and melted. The blades of the ceiling fan in the living room also melted and were hanging straight down, he said.
Reed said several family members came to the scene and he believes the man and his daughter are staying with family until they have another place to live.
Firefighters were at the scene until 12:25 p.m., Reed said.
The Hillsboro Fire Protection District assisted Mapaville with the call. The Dunklin Fire Protection District moved up to Mapaville’s firehouse, he said.