2005-08-14
by Darren Dunlap
of The Daily Times Staff
The family of a 278th Regimental Combat Team soldier lost many of their possessions Saturday morning in an apartment fire.
Patty Pate Dickerson, wife of Staff Sgt. William Dickerson, said the fire burned or damaged everything in their three-bedroom apartment at Parkside Apartments in Maryville.
She and her three children were in Nashville this weekend at a church-related assembly when the fire broke out.
"Seventy-five percent of everything is lost," said Rom Everett, acting chief of the Maryville Fire Department. "It pretty much destroyed everything in the kitchen and the living room."
Anything not touched by the fire has smoke or water damage, said Paula McLemore, president of the family readiness support group for HOW Battery, 1st Squadron, 278th RCT.
The fire started in the living room of the apartment and spread to the kitchen. Maryville firefighters responded at 1:22 a.m. Saturday and cleared the scene two hours later.
The fire department ruled the fire accidental. Everett said the cause of the fire was an overloaded extension cord.
A neighbor who spotted smoke coming from the apartment's living room window reported the fire. "I think they're blessed they were not at home," said J.R. Davis, Maryville Housing Authority maintenance superintendent.
Davis said another apartment at Parkside should be available for the family by Monday afternoon or Tuesday.
The Blount County Chapter of the Red Cross is housing the family this weekend at a hotel in Alcoa and gave them vouchers for food and clothes.
Staff Sgt. Dickerson returned to Blount County on leave last month and left for Iraq July 31. While on leave he took his 4-year-old son, Nehemiah, to his first day of school at Fort Craig School of Dynamic Learning. He had done the same for Elijah, 11, and Mercedes, 7, on their first day of school at Fort Craig.
McLemore said the family readiness support group will be taking donations of furniture, clothes and kitchenware for the family at the HOW Battery armory on West Lamar Alexander Parkway.
Story Copyright to The Daily Times - Maryville