| Updated: 12/28/2009 8:35 am |
Published: 12/27/2009 8:01 pm |
A White County family of four needs a new place to live after losing everything in a Christmas Day fire. The Jones family was in Atkins when it happened. Neighbors got Chocolate, their dog, out of his pen moments before wires fell on top of it, but he's the only thing they have left.
"You just gotta be thankful you got out with your life because if we would have been there, they said it went up in four minutes they said it was gone. We couldn't have watched it. We were devastated when they called," said Mrs. Jones.
"Because they say nobody could have made it out of there. It was gone that quick," said Lucky Jones.
When the Jones family finally made it home Christmas night, they had nothing left to come home to. "Just sitting there and seeing everything you've worked for is gone in five minutes. We've been married 17 years, so 17 years worth of stuff is gone," he added.
A breaker box shorted out, sparking a fire which took firefighters six hours to put out.
When they did, they found a Bible open and untouched. "It was unreal. There was nothing on top of the Bible, the Bible was wide open there was nothing on top of it. The outside of the house, the fire got put out on the front of the house looked like a cross on the front of the house, it was, it was overwhelming," said Fire Chief Allen Edge.
Edge isn't just Kensett's chief, he's also Jones' brother-in-law. "We went on over there like we would any other house," said Edge. And Lucky is a volunteer firefighter himself. "You always think, you never know when it's going to happen to you," he said.
The Red Cross is helping putting the family up in a hotel. First Baptist Church in Kensett is collecting donations. If you'd like to help the Jones family, you can call Destiny Jones at (501) 593-2375 or Karen Jones at (501) 827-1035.
