Mobile home manufacturer donates home for fire victims

A family forced out of their Carson City mobile home by a fire Saturday will get a little help from a local mobile home dealer.

Brenda and Francisco Torres, their two children - 2-year-old Chantel and 5-year-old Javier - and Brenda's sister Idalia may soon have a replacement roof over their heads thanks to a donation by Homes America.

"Wow," Brenda Torres said Thursday night. "I'm in shock right now, I'll have to see it to believe it."

Liana Rose, a saleswoman at the Carson City mobile home dealer, said she read about the Torres's plight and thought about the possibility of giving them a recently traded home to help them out.

"We get a lot of trade-ins," she said. "It's a single-wide; something the family can start out with to get away from living in a motel room."

According to Brenda Torres the fire made her two bedroom mobile home uninhabitable. The family was unavailable for comment Thursday.

"In the back it looked really bad," she said. "The fire department saw the smoke and then the heater exploded."

Brenda said Idalia woke up and was on her way out when the explosion happened.

The donation, worth an estimated $3,000 to $4,000, will be available as soon as the Torres' site at the Clear Creek Trailer is prepared.

"I have two homes and they can take their pick which one they want," Manager Tim Mooney said. "One is a larger one-bedroom and the other has two bedrooms. We could probably get a transport to take it over there too."

Saturday's fire likely started near the water heater, fire officials said. An explosion set a bedroom and bathroom on fire and smoke damage destroyed virtually everything inside.

Mooney said the business is getting ready to move to a location on Highway 50 East due to the proposed Highway bypass. He said moving the inventory will be a big project so this donation will only help.