Trailer Burns While Resident Moving In

By Kenneth Dean, Tyler Morning Telegraph

He left to get something to eat Thursday afternoon. When he returned, his home was consumed by flames. Inside was everything he owned, including Christmas gifts he planned to give to his family.

David Grier Jr., said his day went from bad to worse when he received a phone call telling him the mobile home he was moving into was on fire.

“I had a water leak in the bathroom under the bath tub, so we spent the morning removing it to fix it,” he said. “I just moved everything in yesterday and haven’t even stayed here yet.”

Grier said the water leak was the result of a busted pipe. The person helping him had gone to get parts, and he went to his mother’s home for lunch.

Instead of arriving at the home in the 5600 block of Texas Highway 31 west to finish the plumbing project, he returned to see the home in flames as firefighters from Tyler and Dixie Fire Departments working to save the structure.

“I don’t know what happened,” Grier said as his mother Teresa draped her arm over her son’s shoulder and they watched the firefighters work.

Tyler fire investigators were on the scene late Thursday afternoon sifting through the skeletal remains of the mobile home to determine the cause of the blaze.

“We were working on the pipes and wasn’t doing anything else,” Grier said. “Now everything I had is gone. Just like that and all I have are the clothes on my back.”

Grier said he would stay with his mother until he could get back on his feet.